City of Decorah tells Cho Sun owners to start demolition

January 8, 2014 fire at Cho Sun Restaurant (decorahnews.com file photo)

After a month of unsuccessfully making phone calls to the owners of the Cho Sun restaurant and their attorneys, City of Decorah officials on Friday wrote a letter to the owners of the burned-out restaurant, telling them they needed to start demolition of the building.

The Cho Sun fire occurred in January of 2014.  The owners had told city officials that they were waiting for a settlement with their insurance company.  But when the city's phone calls went unanswered, city officials decided to step up the pressure.

Friday's letter asks the building owners to contact City Hall within 30 days to spell out the plan for demolishing the building.

City officials have a variety of options for how to deal with the issue, all the way up to ordering the demolition themselves and then assessing the costs through property tax bills--but city officials say they'd much prefer that the Cho Sun owners began the job themselves.