KC accused of racism, favoring the wealthy in suit on shuttered East Side grocery
The Black‑led group that ran the now‑shuttered Sun Fresh Market on Kansas City’s East Side has sued the city, alleging it breached its contract and applied a racist double standard to their store and neighborhood compared with wealthier, whiter parts of town.
Midtown Grocers LLC and Community Builders of Kansas City (CBKC) filed the 128‑page lawsuit Tuesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, alleging that the city enabled crime to run rampant and neglected its property, effectively killing the grocery store in the Linwood Shopping Center at East 31st Street and Prospect Avenue.
In response to the lawsuit, City spokeswoman Sherae Honeycutt said Kansas City “will vigorously defend its interests in response to these claims.”
City bought Linwood center to tackle ‘food desert’
Residents on the East Side, particularly those living in neighborhoods near the shopping center, have had few options for fresh produce and other grocery essentials for decades, a situation often described as a “food desert.”
In 2015, the city announced it would purchase and redevelop the Linwood Shopping Center to address blight in the area and to prompt economic development. The anchor tenant would be a newly constructed grocery store. The City Council approved the redevelopment project in June 2016.
In March 2017, the city and Lipari Brothers Inc. entered into a lease under which the company would operate a full‑service Sun Fresh‑brand grocery store there. The company, led by John Lipari, opened the store in June 2018.
The lawsuit notes that Lipari, as well as the individuals principally involved in Lipari Brothers’ operations, are white.
A few months later, there was a shooting at the store that injured two people, including a 15‑year‑old store employee. The lawsuit contends that although the shooting drew attention to the need for increased security at the shopping center, the city failed to provide it.
City backed store’s first operator
In July 2019, the City Council authorized $375,000 in funding for Lipari Brothers and further authorized the city to negotiate a lease amendment. The funding was comprised of a $250,000 line of credit and $125,000 for marketing and maintenance costs.
That October, Lipari Brothers and the city signed a lease amendment that included a workout arrangement to address unpaid rent and modify Lipari’s future rent obligations, the suit says.
Midtown Grocers and CBKC contend the city repeatedly provided significant support to Lipari Brothers, even though it was a for‑profit company operating the store for profit, not community purposes.
During the COVID‑19 pandemic, as Lipari was looking to retire, he contacted CBKC to see if it would be interested in purchasing and operating the grocery store.
The lawsuit contends that Lipari approached CBKC because it had already purchased and successfully operated the Blue Parkway Sun Fresh at The Shops on Blue Parkway.
The nonprofit community development corporation, formerly known as Swope Community Builders, has invested more than $225 million in urban renewal in Kansas City since 1991, the lawsuit says.
Stepped in to prevent food desert
Concerned that closure would again blight the area and re‑create a food desert, CBKC entered negotiations to acquire the grocery operation and assume Lipari Brothers’ lease. The lender for Midtown Grocers required CBKC to guarantee the loan.
After securing a loan to buy Lipari Brothers’ inventory and leasehold interest, CBKC and Midtown Grocers met with then–City Manager Brian Platt and other officials, who repeatedly voiced support for their plan to save the grocery, the lawsuit says. Relying on those assurances, they obtained the city’s consent to assume Lipari’s lease, recorded in December 2021.
The suit notes the city had previously given Lipari Brothers substantial financial help, but provided no such assistance to CBKC or Midtown Grocers, even allegedly ignoring a request for funds to fix equipment and make tenant improvements.
Plaintiffs say they and their lender depended on lease language requiring the city to manage and maintain the center “in a first class manner,” while keeping “exclusive control” over the common areas — meaning the grocer couldn’t provide its own parking‑lot security.
The suit says that, after months of public pressure, the City Council in November 2024 eventually approved up to $1.75 million in financial aid to keep the store open. But CBKC and Midtown Grocers allege the money was slow to arrive and far less than promised, calling the assistance “too little, too late” to save the struggling grocery.
Crime, safety fears and ‘Gun Fresh’
CBKC, through Midtown Grocers, took over the Sun Fresh on Feb. 10, 2022, and finished that year more than $300,000 in the black, according to the lawsuit.
But by late 2022, though, the store’s finances slid as crime and safety problems at the city‑owned center escalated — including weapons, threats, fights, drug use and trafficking, prostitution and heavy shoplifting — and the city remained “indifferent and nonresponsive” when incidents were reported, the suit alleges.
As one example, the complaint points to an August 2024 news conference at 31st and Prospect, where Mayor Quinton Lucas, Police Chief Stacey Graves and others gathered to discuss the city’s 100th homicide of the year.
The event quickly turned to the rampant crime at the shopping center, and representatives of CBKC and Midtown Grocers showed graphic surveillance video from the site. The lawsuit says no independent investigation followed and that a promised 24/7 police presence at the intersection “lasted only briefly.”
The suit also describes an August 2024 incident in which police responded after a man fought with security and allegedly threatened to “air this place out.” Even after officers found he had a loaded gun, they did not arrest him, citing a lack of city jail space, and later discounted the store manager’s account, according to the filing.
Plaintiffs argue the city applies a double standard, holding private property owners to higher expectations than it accepts for itself. They point to an August 2025 shooting near the Power & Light District, after which Lucas urged owners to better secure downtown parking lots, while, they say, similar violence around parking lots in predominantly Black neighborhoods like the Linwood Center “have not drawn the ire and attention of the City.”
Crime at the shopping center became so common, the lawsuit claims, that some residents nicknamed the store “Gun Fresh” and teenage employees carried tasers in their pockets.
The Sun Fresh ultimately closed in August 2025, the lawsuit says, leaving the surrounding neighborhoods once again without a full‑service grocery store.
The lawsuit brings several claims against the city, including breach of contract over the lease, negligence in the city’s ownership and management of the shopping center, and “constructive eviction” — arguing the city’s conduct made it impossible to continue operating the store. It also alleges that the city’s conduct was racially discriminatory and that it applied a double standard.
Midtown Grocers and CBKC claim that they incurred extensive damages, including lost profits and reputational harm, that together exceeds $5 million.
