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Legal counsel for Pappas Restaurants temporarily rescinded the Houston-based company’s lawsuit against the City of Houston arising from a lucrative, yet controversial concessions contract for William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), per media outlets’ reports.
Pappas is at odds with city hall after the latter terminated its professional relationship with the former in March and awarded the agreement to Miami-based Areas.
According to Houston Daily, the restaurant group, which has maintained four establishments at HOU since at least the last decade, pursued legal action on claims statutory procedures for competitive sealed proposals weren’t followed and Texas Open Meetings Act were ignored by the city.
Houston NBC affiliate KPRC reported that a court hearing scheduled for Wednesday has been put on hold as the complainant’s witnesses, including Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office, were not present.
“The reason why we did that is because the necessary witnesses who made the decision on this government procurement are not in our city,” attorney Rachel Hooper said in the report. “In fact, they’re not in our country right now, and so we need these witnesses. We need access to them. We need testimony from them to make our case.”
As of press time, Turner is in the midst of a trade and investment mission in Brazil and is expected to return to the U.S. during the weekend.
Hooper told a local major publication that the city also didn’t make the deadline to turn over documents.
Per KPRC, Pappas can request a temporary injunction at a later date.
Just before Turner left for South America, he said Pappas must begin preparations for leaving the city’s second major air gateway and they had until the middle part of next month to do so.
“They need to start packing now,” Turner said at the Wednesday, April 19 city council meeting, per Houston NPR affiliate Houston Public Media (HPM). “They are leaving the airport."