Merchants petition for restitution

With downtown construction more then halfway complete, some of Kilgore's downtown merchants are not quite optimistic anymore about the Main Street project.

Doyle Turner, owner of The Dove's Kitchen located at 216 E. Main, is joining with other downtown merchants in signing a petition seeking restitution from the City of Kilgore for lost revenue.

Turner, who has been in business for 15 months, said construction forced him to shut his business down.

"As a restaurant, food has to be prepared each day to meet the normal needs of your customers. After construction started, business slowly declined and the amount of food left over each day became higher," said Turner. "It finally got to the point the loss was so great my only alternative was to shut down do to the loss."

The petition states merchants seek restitution up to $1,000 per month for the months their businesses were affected by the construction, said Turner.

"I have eleven merchants signed up so far, not to mention the support of other Kilgore merchants who want to sign in support of down- town," he said.

Walter Florence, owner of Boomtown Video located at 217 E. Main St., said he signed the petition because his business has lost more than $14,000 since the construction began.

Turner said he will present the petition to the Kilgore City Council at one of their regularly scheduled meetings once he has obtained all of the signatures from merchants who want to participate.

"In the petition the merchants are giving the city council a certain amount of time to respond, at which point, based on legal advice I have already obtained, the merchants will decide whether to file a class action lawsuit against the city," said Turner.

Turner agrees that not all downtown businesses are affected by the construction as much as others, so all merchants are not signing the petition.

"I have spoken to one other merchant who related to me their business might not last until the end of the year," said Turner.

Jeff Howell, city manger for Kilgore, said he has seen an unofficial copy of the petition but considers this a legal matter and will refer any comments on it at this time to the city attorney.

No comment could be obtained from city attorney Robert Schleier at press time.