Courtroom Victory Turns Costly for Gwen’s Kitchen

While Gwen’s Kitchen is celebrating a hard-fought legal win at the Court of Appeal, it is no doubt a Pyrrhic  victory with a bitter aftertaste. The five-year courtroom battle has strained ties with the family of late Belizean businessman Hector Thompson, a man the restaurant owners say once strongly supported small entrepreneurs along the George Price Highway and Coney Drive. And despite largely prevailing in court, Gwen’s Kitchen now faces a crushing legal bill after the appellate court declined to award costs. Tonight, owner Tiffany Cadle says the ruling may have settled the legal dispute but financially and emotionally, the fight has taken a heavy toll.

 

Tiffany Cadle, Owner, Gwen’s Kitchen

“The original owner of that property, Mr. Thompson and us, we had a very good relationship. We worked for Mr. Thompson and he never had any issue at all with any of the small businesses on that road. As a matter of fact, some of the small business there went to see Mr. Thompson before they put up those structure there. The appeal court, to me, upheld majority of Justice Shoman’s ruling. But it did not award us costs. And as you pointed out we have been in this for five years and that’s the only part of the judgment which I think it’s to me was not fair because we won. Our attorney, Mr. Bennett excellent… He did an excellent job and he has been on this case for five years. We have been on this case for five years, and we now will have to pay our bill when we won because we won our appeal. So why we were not off-ordered cost to be paid for us, that to me is the only unfair.  And it’s unfair, I would say, too, because we are a small business. They are multimillion-dollar businesses and people with multi-m- with millions. To put us in this type of fight for five years without us being able to recover one cent, to me is very unfortunate.”

 

While Gwen’s Kitchen managed to secure a title for the portion of land they occupy, other vendors in the area have not.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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