Owners seeks to reopen Old Port restaurant

PORTLAND — The owner of a well-known Old Port restaurant that has been closed for nearly a year hopes to reopen it soon.

Joseph Soley has filed an application to do business again at the Seaman’s Club, which was shut down last October after failing four city health inspections.

Evan Smith, one of Soley’s attorneys, said Thursday that the “slate should be wiped clean” and the Seamen’s Club should be treated as any new restaurant would be.

If it gets a passing grade from health inspectors, the restaurant simply should be allowed to reopen, Smith said.

“We deserve to start from scratch,” he said.

But Portland officials say the restaurant must still meet the conditions the city imposed at the time the restaurant’s license was revoked.

“That order required remediation of conditions existing in the restaurant which pose a threat to the public safety,” Charles A. Lane, the city’s attorney, said in a letter to Soley.

“Mr. Soley’s hopeful view that those conditions have lost their vitality … is contrary to the city’s duty to protect the public health.”

The city ordered Soley to hire a consultant to inspect the 133-year-old building on Fore Street and to train his employees to keep the place clean and free of vermin.

City officials also wanted all ceilings, floors, walls and shelving cleaned and repaired; all unnecessary furniture removed from the basement; and all coolers replaced or repaired.

Soley owns more than a dozen properties in the historic district.

In June, a jury ordered him to pay four of his former tenants more than $1 million for subjecting them to cockroaches, mice, a leaky roof, broken windows and the smell of cat urine.