Banquet hall is under fire again

MONTROSE — City inspectors were sent Tuesday to the Montrose Collection restaurant and banquet hall — which faces a criminal complaint from the city alleging zoning violations — to investigate what appeared to be new signs advertising a new business name.

The business did not have permits for the new signs, city officials said.

When questioned Tuesday, Montrose Collection co-owner Takui Aivazian acknowledged that the business had changed its name to “Sebastia.”

“The reason we’ve changed it is because we never liked the name,” she said.

But Aivazian later renounced her comments, saying she was referencing another establishment she owns that was getting a name change. She declined to name the other business, but the Montrose Collection title will remain at least until pending legal actions are resolved, she said.

“I am not changing the name,” she said.

Aivazian said the signs went up temporarily as part of a weekend film shoot for an Armenian television station and could come down as early as today. But the removal of the signs won’t likely save the restaurant from more zoning woes as the alleged film shoot was done without required permits, city officials said.

The business’ former signs have been replaced with a two-tone neon sign mounted to the building facade reading “Sebastia” and a monument sign in front of the business reading “Sebastia Restaurant and Banquet.”

An online Yellowpages listing for Montrose Collection says the establishment is also known as “Sebastia Restaurant & Banquet.”

Aivazian said she did not know why the listing would say that.

Mary Jane Thornburg, a spokeswoman for Glendale-based Yellowpages.com, acknowledged the reference and said it was likely provided to the site by one of several information databases that feeds the company’s free listings.

Free listings are not updated by the businesses themselves, but the information goes through several layers of verification, Thornburg said.

Thornburg could not identify the source of the “Sebastia” reference by press time.

The new signs led to speculation at City Hall about how the apparent name change could affect ongoing legal proceedings between the city and the restaurant.