SOMERS POINT — A local restaurateur has accused a city councilman of trying to strong-arm him into giving up on development plans at his family’s longtime business.
John Exadaktilos spoke during the Somers Point City Council meeting Dec. 14, alleging City Councilman Sean McGuigan committed official misconduct by threatening to take parking spaces away from the restaurant if he did not give up on plans to erect a digital billboard on the property.
Exadaktilos’ family has long owned and operated Somers Point Diner at MacArthur Boulevard and Somers Point-Mays Landing Road, at the former circle.
Last December, his father Nicholas Exadaktilos, who has owned the property since 1981, applied to the Zoning Board for permission to erect a 45-foot-high billboard between the diner and Diorio’s Circle Cafe to the west. That application was unanimously rejected Dec. 12, 2022, according to Exadaktilos. The vote could not be immediately confirmed because Somers Point does not provide the board’s meeting minutes on its municipal website.
Nicholas Exadaktilos died Feb. 11, 2023, at 83. His son, who also owns Ducktown Tavern in Atlantic City, and daughter, whose family owns Tailgaters in Egg Harbor City, have assumed responsibilities.
Exadaktilos said McGuigan asked to meet along with Councilman Joe McCarrie on Oct. 2. Exadaktilos told the Sentinel that he felt the point of the meeting was to discourage him from pursuing the billboard.
City solicitor Tom Smith said he was aware that McGuigan and McCarrie met and was told Exadaktilos was adamant about wanting to build the sign.
Smith said the company that was going to erect the billboard, Garden State Outdoor, has sued the city to overturn the Zoning Board decision. The parties are set for a hearing next month in Superior Court in Atlantic City, Smith said.
At the same time, Bob Gandhi, owner of the adjacent Passport Inn, is trying to sell the motel he has owned since 1993 but cannot get clear title to the property because the boundaries have been unclear since the state Route 52 bridge replacement project completed in 2013.
“We have to clear up who owns the land, where the property line is,” Gandhi said. “We are fighting with the lawyers right now.”
The property in dispute is paved and used as parking for the diner, 11 spots facing Circle Liquor. Part of the problem, Smith said, is it is not clear whether the city, state or one of the private parties owns the property in question.
“If the city gives it to me then the diner has a problem,” Gandhi said.
Smith said Gandhi wants to compel the city to give him a right of access to the property.
“If we were to do what they want us to do, we would be barring the Point Diner from right of passage. It would take away public access to them,” Smith said.
Exadaktilos alleges that McGuigan threatened to give the easement to Gandhi, stripping him of the parking spots, if he did not give up plans for the billboard. He said he has hired an attorney and plans to pursue legal measures against McGuigan.
“I find it very disappointing that after more than 40 years, never a problem, always there, and it just seems like BS,” Exadaktilos told City Council. “I find it disheartening, dishonest and absurd that I was threatened to have parking taken away if I didn’t promise not to proceed with the billboard.”
Reached on vacation, McGuigan said that because Exadaktilos said he was filing a lawsuit, “it would be improper for me to comment on that.”
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff