Phoenix accused business owner suing city over homeless camp of illegal mattresses dumping
Phoenix officials, in court documents filed Wednesday, accused the owner of a mattress company suing the city over a large homeless encampment near his business of authorizing the illegal dumping of mattresses.
The mattresses, the city said in the filings, could be used by people experiencing homelessness and contribute to the "alleged nuisance" in "The Zone," as the homeless camp is called. The Zone includes the area from Seventh to 15th avenues and Harrison to Jefferson streets.
Phoenix's accusations were made in the state court lawsuit Brown v. City of Phoenix, which was filed in August 2022 by residents and business owners — including Ian Francis Likwarz, the owner of Arizona Mattress Overstock — who say the sprawling encampment is a public nuisance and that the city has allowed it to occur.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney, who is presiding over the case, issued a preliminary order in March that required the city to begin clearing out the encampment. A trial in the case was held in July, and the parties are awaiting a judge's decision on what changes, if any, will be made to the preliminary order demanding the cleanups.
Lawyers representing Likwarz and the other businesses and residents suing the city have already asked the judge to dismiss Phoenix's filing about the mattresses, describing the claims as "uncorroborated" and "irrelevant."
"They are allegations Mr. Likwarz strenuously disputes," according to a court record filed Thursday.
Phoenix officials, in the court documents, said a man was seen by a city employee taking mattresses from a truck bearing the name of Likwarz's company and leaving them next to a dumpster near Madison and Jackson Streets, which is close to The Zone.
Photos of the truck and the mattresses were submitted to the court by Scott Hall, the deputy director of the Phoenix's Office of Homelessness Solutions. In a declaration filed with the court, Hall said he spoke to the man unloading the mattresses and "asked him to load them back in his truck." One of the photos submitted to the court shows roughly 10 mattresses stacked next to a dumpster.
Phoenix, in its court filings, argued the discarded mattresses might be used by people experiencing homelessness living in the area.
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It's ironic, the city said, that the businesses and residents suing the city claim the city's policies toward people experiencing homelessness are creating a public nuisance when Likwarz "is directing or allowing his staff to literally dump mattresses in the Zone that can readily be used for the very purpose that he so strongly opposes."
The lawyers representing Likwarz and the other plaintiffs said in their filed response that it's unreasonable to claim that one person could contribute to the number of people in The Zone and new evidence shouldn't be considered in the case.
"The trial is over, the material in the notice is irrelevant, and its intended purpose appears to be nothing more than to publicly defame a lead plaintiff," said Ilan Wurman, an attorney for the plaintiffs, in an emailed statement.
The plaintiffs asked the city to withdraw its filing about the mattresses, but the city refused, according to court records. In response, the plaintiffs' attorneys filed a motion to strike the city's mattress filing.
On Friday, Phoenix filed a reply to the motion to strike that affirmed the claims about the mattresses were true and said it did not intend to embarrass Likwarz.
The mattress filing, Phoenix's attorneys said, "serves to reinforce the point the City made at trial: that it is a gross oversimplification to impute causation for any alleged nuisance from a small subset of events ... when there are many potential causes or contributing factors" to the circumstances of The Zone.
Helen Rummel covers housing insecurity and homelessness for The Arizona Republic. Reach her at hrummel@gannett.com.
Juliette Rihl contributed reporting.
Coverage of housing insecurity on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Arizona Community Foundation.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix store owner part of 'Zone' lawsuit accused of illegal dumping
