Omaha, NE -- LeRoy Carhart is losing his Bellevue abortion facility building in six months, but he may lose access to the main clinic parking lot much sooner.The closure of the 14,000-square foot parking lot would be significant because it has allowed people to walk from their cars to the abortion facility's door with minimal confrontation from others.
A partnership including pro-life State Sen. Paul Hartnett of Bellevue has informed Carhart that it is canceling his month-to-month lease on the adjacent parking lot as of June 15. The partners bought the building this month and used an option in the doctor's lease to order him to move out within six months.
"If it's possible, I'm going to close it down," Bill Rotert, the partnership's lead investor, said of the parking lot. "I'm already pricing chain."
Rotert said those going to the abortion facility still will be able to use five spaces on the other side of the building. Those spaces are much closer to a public sidewalk where demonstrators can legally protest and display signs.
Rotert and Dean Hungers, an attorney for the building owners, said they notified Carhart about the cancellation of the parking-lot lease and have not heard back from him.
The closure of the main lot would not cause any zoning problems that would prevent Carhart from doing business, said Acting City Planner Chris Shewchuk, because the city requires that a medical facility have five parking spaces for every doctor.
Margie Kelly, a Carhart spokeswoman in New York, said that she doesn't know whether Carhart is considering the specific issue of the parking lot but that he still is pondering a move.
Kelly is a part of the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Law and Policy that is representing Carhart in his lawsuit, now before the U.S. Supreme Court, that challenges Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortions. Carhart has said he will leave Nebraska if the ban is upheld.
"He has said that in the past," Kelly said. "It's 30 days left before we find out. He's got that to think about, too."
The three partners of Bert Murphy LLC described their $325,000 purchase of the building, a neighboring house and a parking lot as a good business move. But the partners readily admit a desire to remove Carhart from his present location, which is across from the St. Mary Catholic grade school, if not entirely out of Bellevue. Hartnett and partner Ken Wessling are members of the St. Mary parish.
[LifeNews.com/May 31, 2000]
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