Dispute between Sacramento officials, owner of historic bar The Trap escalates

The dispute between former Sacramento Kings owner Gregg Lukenbill and city officials over historic Greenhaven bar The Trap took another turn Wednesday, with a city board voting to confirm fees related to the bar while Lukenbill’s attorney promised a second lawsuit against the city in as many months

The city’s Housing Code Advisory and Appeals Board voted unanimously to uphold charges of $1,550 against Lukenbill’s company G&SL LLC, which owns the property at 6125 Riverside Blvd. where The Trap is located. City officials and Lukenbill have been at odds for more than a year over unpermitted work done at the property, which dates to the mid-19th century and is on the local historic register.

“They just put the fees through,” Lukenbill told The Bee on Thursday morning. “It was just a rubber stamp kind of a thing.”

Jennifer Singer, a spokesperson for the city didn’t immediately provide comment.

The board’s vote came minutes after Lukenbill’s attorney Brad Carroll of Downey Brand LLP promised to sue the city if it rejects a claim Lukenbill and his daughter Mariah Lukenbill, who operates the The Trap, filed in late June. This would be separate from the lawsuit Carroll filed against the city on July 11.

Gregg Lukenbill and Carroll have contended that the city approved work more than a decade before Lukenbill and his family bought The Trap in 2022, but that the work hadn’t been finished. The city had led a push in the late 2000s and early 2010s to save the historic bar and prevent its demolition.

“G&SL LLC should not be charged these notice and order costs that are ultimately the result of the city’s own actions dating all the way back to 2011,” Carroll, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, told the board.

Gregg Lukenbill, a longtime developer who spearheaded bringing the Kings to Sacramento from Kansas City in 1985, wrote in a letter to the board on Aug. 11, “I have pulled thousands of building permits from 21 different central valley cities and counties. I have never in my national and international business career ever experienced anything like this over a simple historical building permit.”

Carroll requested during Wednesday’s meeting that the board either reject the charges or hold them in abeyance until the litigation between The Trap and the city is resolved. He also said that Gregg Lukenbill had met with Tom Pace, the city’s director of community development, and came to an agreement that fees and costs related to the issue would be cancelled.

In response, a member of the city attorney’s office told the board that the fees in question were issued two months after this meeting and that she was hopeful that Gregg Lukenbill and his family could figure out the city’s permitting process. “I know the city has been trying to help at every step of the way,” the attorney said.

Board member George Antablian said shortly before the vote that the board could only go off of whether the city’s fees were accurate and that since the code violations weren’t contested, they were valid. “For me, I am still seeing that the city did incur fees and are reasonable within the fees that they have assessed,” Antablian said.

When the saga will get resolved remains to be seen. Attorneys for both sides tentatively agreed in early August to vacate a hearing in the first case that had been scheduled for Sept. 15, while they worked on resolving issues brought up in an amended petition, according to a court filing.

Still, the matter appears far from settled for Gregg Lukenbill. As he was leaving the hearing on Wednesday, he put his hands together and spoke two words to Peter Lemos, the city’s code and housing enforcement chief.

“Buckle up,” Gregg Lukenbill told Lemos.

This story was originally published August 14, 2025 at 2:37 PM.