The owners of The Sub and and an adjoining business, which were destroyed in a 2015 fire, are suing the city of San Luis Obispo for more than $5 million, claiming that firefighters’ methods used to combat the blaze were “tantamount to arson.”
The lawsuit, filed Monday in San Luis Obispo Superior Court, alleges the Fire Department purposefully burned down the structure rather than put firefighters in harm’s way, and that city administration turns a blind eye to the department’s alleged “unwritten policies” of letting buildings burn.
“Criminals kill witnesses to eliminate evidence; our Fire Department expedites the burn-down of buildings and impedes investigations of the cause of the fire and Fire Department conduct in order to conceal flawed policies,” the complaint reads.