Coronato Pizza, located in the South Green shopping center in Carrboro, will be closing on October 15, according to a post on the restaurant’s Instagram page.
“Over the past year, we have done our very best to provide you with great pizza and amazing service while working through significant health and safety concerns,” read the restaurant’s statement. “Though our efforts to mitigate the challenge and transition to a take-out only service model were in good faith, it was not meant to be a sustainable solution. We have since exhausted ourselves, and our resources, while waiting for a solution that never came.”
Coronato initially closed its dining room operations indefinitely in February due to “circumstances that are out of our control.” Diggs Restaurant Group, LLC, which runs the restaurant, soon filed a lawsuit against the neighboring Oasis Cigar Lounge, claiming that Coronato lost business and some staffers had suffered negative health effects as a result of the lounge’s secondhand smoke. Coronato’s owners also filed suit against Woodhill NC, LLC, which owns and manages the South Green shopping center.
The owner of Coronato Pizza, Teddy Diggs, confirmed to Chapelboro that litigation between his business, Oasis Cigar Lounge, and Woodhill NC is still ongoing. Follow-up questions about the decision to close have not yet been answered.
The restaurant reportedly met with Woodhill leadership in September 2022 to explore solutions, but later said the steps taken by both Woodhill and Oasis were not satisfactory. The lawsuit claimed employees and customers suffered “headaches, sinus and eye irritation” as a result of the smoke.
“For several months, Coronato has been trying to deal with the intrusion of secondhand smoke into our restaurant space,” read a statement from Diggs in April. “Professional air quality testing has deemed that our air contains a high concentration of hazardous pollutants that are related to tobacco smoke. We have been experiencing this situation for some time, but after the analysis of significant professional testing we felt that it was unacceptable for us to continue to operate our business as usual.”
Oasis later responded with its own statement, saying it “has always sought to be good neighbors.”
“It has extensive and expensive investments geared to mitigate the smoke in its space,” the April statement went on to say. “There are four Industrial Strength Air Purification Units in the business. There are Ozone filters in the unit, and the HVAC units have been rerouted to negative air pressure, keeping all of the air inside. At this point, Oasis is exploring all of its legal options.”
As of September 18, no other businesses in South Green have filed suit against either Oasis or Woodhill.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated on September 20 to reflect information confirming Diggs’ lawsuit is active.
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One question not raised in this article is why NC Law requires cigar lounges to be in a freestanding building unless they’re a non-profit, which Oasis is. Seems like such an odd distinction.
Also, were those 3rd party public health tests done before or after measures that Oasis said it took were done?
Is the lawsuit ongoing or did it reach a decision?
What is meant by “at this point, Oasis is exploring all of its legal options”?
I can’t help but feel like I’m not getting the whole story here.