Legal Battle Looms Over Carmichael Shopping Center Parking Lot

CARMICHAEL (CBS13) — There's calm and there's chaos.

But it's not what's going on inside Marconi Dental Group and Falling Prices discount store in Carmichael on Fair Oaks Boulevard.

It's what's happening outside.

"They started immediately after Falling Prices opened their doors for customers," Dr. Maryam Saleh, Marconi Dental Group, said.

Doctors with Marconi Dental Group said their next-door neighbor — Falling Prices — means falling clientele for them.

They said the customers who are lined out the door most days are leaving trash behind in the parking lot and nowhere to park for their patients.

"We've had patients call that they've been driving around for hours and they can't get a parking spot so they leave and cancel their appointments," Saleh said. "There's definitely more trash in the center. And before they open the back door to Falling Prices there would be lines of people."

Saleh and her dental office filed a lawsuit against the discount store, its property owner and property manager in July.

The group is demanding $200,000 in damage for the parking issues being a nuisance and an additional $1 million in property damage and money lost from it.

"We try to do everything we can to be as respectful as we can to the other tenants in the parking lot," Larry Morgan, RL Liquidators, said.

Morgan is one of the founders of RL Liquidators which owns Falling Prices. He told CBS13 the company's focus is being a good neighbor, but he said he'd like both sides to compromise.

"Anybody can come in and sit down and chat with us. So, we never close the door on anybody," Morgan said. "We don't have any ill will towards anybody."

Morgan feels that the lawsuit is unwarranted.

"We'll obviously be aggressively engaged in defending ourselves from it. We don't think it's a warranted lawsuit by any stretch of the imagination," Morgan said.

Morgan told CBS13 he knows there aren't a lot of spaces in front of the store, which is why Morgan and the Falling Prices folks are recommending that people park in the back.

The Marconi Dental Group says it doesn't dislike the Falling Price business or its customers. It feels they could strike a compromise as does Morgan.

"Perhaps they can find a more suitable location for their business and just to, kind of, bring some order back to the center," Saleh said.

But, moving isn't an option for Morgan.

"We've invested a lot of money in that space obviously, and just to pick up and leave because somebody's outside for about parking, that doesn't seem like a reasonable solution to the problem," Morgan said.

The Marconi Dental Group hopes the lawsuit does get Falling Prices to move to a new location if a compromise can't be reached.