More Legal Trouble for Forster Mansion Wedding Planner

This story was updated at 3:10 p.m. Tuesday with current information from the landowner.

The owner of a troubled wedding business at San Juan Capistrano's historic is the subject of another lawsuit.

The newest claim against Arpi Evans centers on a separate business, a beach bar she owns on Doheny Park Road.

The landlord there alleges she owes more than $40,000 in overdue rent. It's the second unlawful detainer suit filed against Evans, a San Juan Capistrano resident, in the past two years.

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The first lawsuit was filed by Forster Mansion owners Phillip and Maryanne Charis in 2010. They held a lease option agreement with Evans to purchase the property where she runs her wedding business, but that expired in May. Subsequently, the Charises sued, claiming she owes more than $150,000 in rent.

A trial will be held Nov. 7 in that case.

Meanwhile, on Sept. 2, Old Town Inc., the owners of the property where Evans runs Coconuts Restaurant, gave her a three-day notice to pay rent or forfeit her lease, which she has held since May 2006.

When the suit was filed late last month, the property owner wrote that those three days elapsed without payment from Evans. She reportedly owes $41,576—covering five months of rent.

Evans and Coconuts Restaurant "continue to unlawfully occupy the property and are causing [the] plaintiff a hardship," the suit states. In addition to back rent, the suit seeks forfeiture of the lease and legal costs.

The matter is currently being resolved and Coconuts has a right to occupy the property, the landowner told Patch on Tuesday.

Evans is more than $1 million in debt. In court documents, she has blamed the situation on a permit battle with the city of San Juan Capistrano and misrepresentations by the Charises, who she said never informed her they didn't have the proper permits to hold weddings at the mansion. 

Although she was able to obtain a conditional use permit to hold weddings, San Juan Capistrano's Planning Commisison recently found she violated mulitple city codes, and revoked the permit.

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Evans is appealing the commission's decision. The City Council will hear her appeal at its Nov. 1 meeting.