Anchorage Daily News

Al Choy, majority owner of a gaudy bar on the Old Seward Highway, sued the city this week, claiming muni bureaucrats ran a bait-and-switch on him over an Alaska Railroad train car sitting in his parking lot.

Choy intended to hoist the train to the second story of Al's Alaskan Inn and connect it to the building.

The city gave him a building permit last spring but within weeks said that was a mistake and ordered him to stop work. A city building official said last year that Choy misled the city about parking issues raised by adding the train.

The permit was issued as a result of miscommunications, says municipal attorney Jim Reeves.

The city ordered Choy to move the train off his property by April 14. He is outraged and filed suit Thursday in Anchorage Superior Court.

Choy says he wants the rail car to make the building more attractive and to draw tourists. The bar is a two-story building with multicolored signs painted all around the exterior on a yellow canopy.

Choy's dad started it as a neighborhood tavern. Under the son's leadership, the bar has grown more popular and attracts an estimated 400 patrons on a weekend night, Choy said.

Choy had already installed pilings to hold the train car on the second story when the city stopped work on it last year.

Then came months of arguing over how much parking Al's Alaskan Inn should have, and whether he could send people to park on land across the street. Eventually, Choy said, a proposal to use spaces at a business center across 79th Avenue failed because there weren't enough spaces available in front of the center. City law wouldn't permit using spaces behind the business center, as they are next to a residential area.

"The municipality basically suckered ... Choy," the lawsuit says, encouraging him to apply for an exception to city parking rules, then not supporting it.

When he was first issued the building permit, Choy began spending considerable amounts of money to move the rail car and construct the stanchions, the suit says.

The city claims there's no way Choy can legally go ahead with the project.

"What he is trying to do is not permitted by the law," said Reeves. "In my opinion, he's trying to game the system, seeking to exploit miscommunications."

There remains a dispute about what Choy told city officials at the time he obtained the permit, said Reeves. "He claims he told the municipality one thing. Muni folks have a different interpretation of that conversation."

Daily News reporter Rosemary Shinohara can be reached at rshinohara@adn.com or 257-4340.