BAC, restaurant owner sue each other over Fridays at Third

The Brewery Arts Center is suing Mom and Pop's diner owner Doug Cramer over the $2,483.33 he owes them for the Fridays at Third event last year.

And Cramer in turn is counter-suing the Brewery Arts Center for the $4,500 he already paid on that contract.

BAC Executive Director John Procaccini said Cramer still needs to pay the balance on the $7,000 contract he signed for the weekly concert series last year. Cramer said Procaccini breached that contract when the location and size of the outside bars for Mom and Pop's and its neighbor The Firkin and Fox were altered.

Procaccini agreed that changes were made for both Mom and Pop's and The Firkin and Fox's outside bars last summer, but the changes did not nullify the contract. Cramer disagrees.

"You can't have a contract with a diagram and change it to however you want," he said.

Cramer, who started the event nine years ago, said he also owns the name "Fridays @ Third," adding he disliked the bands Procaccini brought to the event and that The Firkin and Fox was favored over his restaurant.

"John Procaccini changed it so it only favored one business, The Firkin and Fox," Cramer said.

Procaccini said Cramer paid on the contract for about five weeks and suddenly stopped, adding the BAC gave Cramer opportunities to pay back the remaining $2,433.33 on his contract.

"He's a pain ...," Procaccini said, adding, "In my opinion it's vindictive and trying to make a spectacle out of the whole thing."

They will meet in small claims court later this month.