North Huntingdon to investigate camper parked at former Rivertowne tavern site

After North Huntingdon won a three-year legal battle that went to the state Superior Court before it could demolish the vacant and deteriorating Rivertowne Pub & Grille along Route 30, township officials now are dealing with apparent squatters on the property.

A township code enforcement officer was directed by the commissioners to investigate a camper, which has been parked at the rear of the property for a few weeks. With a tarp covering the roof, the camper is not connected to any visible water or sewer lines. Two SUVs with Ohio and Florida license plates were parked on the property last week.

Joshua Andrykovitch, community development director, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Resident Lorie Kukich told township commissioners at a meeting last week that she has seen people coming out of the camper as she drives along Route 30 in the morning.

No one responded to knocks on the door of the camper last week.

The camper should be removed, said Commissioner Eric Gass, whose Seventh Ward district includes that section of the township.

“They’re just throwing trash out of the trailer. That’s unsightly. There’s multiple violations there, no doubt,” said Gass, who said he contacted township officials about the camper two weeks ago.

The township paid Dj Demo Co. of Braddock to demolish the building and the Rivertown roadside sign, then placed a lien against the property owner, 1318 Carson Street LLC of Mt. Lebanon.

North Huntingdon official had set the wheels in motion in October 2021 to condemn the building on the grounds that it was unsafe after being closed since January 2019 in the wake of the Rivertowne Brewery Co. bankruptcy of May 2018. That property was not sold in bankruptcy court because it was privately owned by Christian Fyke and Joseph Boros Jr., both of Monroeville, who purchased it for $520,000 in 2011, according to documents filed with the Westmoreland County Recorder of Deeds.

Shivs Real Estate LLC acquired a 50% interest in the property by buying out Fyke in 2019 for just $7,500.

During the court battle in which Shivs appealed the condemnation notice on the grounds that the building remained structurally sound, the property changed hands to 1318 Carson Street LLC, essentially owned by the same people. North Huntingdon won the lengthy court battle last year, clearing the way to get the building demolished.

A spokesman for 1318 Carson Street could not be reached for comment. Harry Faulk, township manager, could not be reached for comment.

One of the company owners, Prasad Marganbandhu of Mt. Lebanon, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh in September 2024 to bankruptcy fraud and mail fraud, in connection with a scheme to defraud the bankruptcy court by filing multiple bankruptcy petitions in the names of companies he controlled to delay paying creditors and taxing bodies. The mail fraud charge was for falsifying an insurance claim on a building destroyed by fire on East Carson Street in Pittsburgh’s South Side.

Margabandhu was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $240,000 in restitution.