BRENTWOOD : Petition Drive Launched to Save Deli : Restaurant: More than 1,500 signatures are gathered after mall managers refuse to renew Marjan's lease.

BRENTWOOD : Petition Drive Launched to Save Deli : Restaurant: More than 1,500 signatures are gathered after mall managers refuse to renew Marjan’s lease.

By LINDA FELDMAN

April 9, 1995 12 AM PT

It’s just a neighborhood Brentwood eatery, but in only a month more than 1,500 people have signed a petition to keep Marjan open after the deli’s lease was not renewed.

And if the deli is closed, hundreds more loyal patrons threaten to boycott the Brentwood Country Mart, where Marjan’s owners--Richard and Jean Solomon--have been doing business for the last 21 years.

This could be war, Brentwood style.

It’s really about the family atmosphere the Solomons have created over the years. Regulars come, some almost every morning, to greet familiar faces.

“This place means a lot,” said Shirley Way, organizer of the petition drive. “It will be like a death in the family if it closes.”

Marjan’s clientele includes the rich, the famous, the notorious and the ordinary.

“To me, it is so depressing,” said waiter Patrick Bossard. “I can always find a job, but I’m losing a family--the kids who weren’t even born when I started seven years ago and my special ladies who come to chitchat.”

And what will happen to the plaque on the wall next to the booth that Carole Sobieski, the late screenwriter, used to occupy?

Three-time Emmy winner David Rintels, sitting in his favorite booth, likes to tell the story of how Sobieski, writer of “Fried Green Tomatoes,” used to arrive before anyone else.

“She was allowed in before it opened. The rest of us--Marty Ritt, Alvin Sargent, Frank Pierson, Ray Stark--started drifting in around 8:15, and we’d trade war stories and first drafts,” Rintels said. “She’d be there with a yellow pad and if the writing was going well, she’d wave us away; if it was bad, she’d call us over.”

But Mila Doerner, who has been coming with her parents since she was 10, does not want Marjan to be characterized as a celebrity hangout: “It’s the only place in Los Angeles where the owners know your birthday and celebrate it when you come for breakfast.”

A month ago, Century City-based Topa Management Co. advised the Solomons that Fireside Market, a new tenant in the Mart, needed the space occupied by the tiny deli.

Topa refused to renew Marjan’s lease and offered the Solomons the space that used to house a hardware store, said Blair Balderman, assistant to Topa’s president.

“We have a legal right to not renew his lease, and we feel firm in our position,” she said.

Enter Skip Miller, Marjan’s lawyer and a frequent customer.

Miller said: “We will prove that the Solomons have a lease until 1999 and the offer of the hardware store, which faces a parking lot and has no kitchen or facilities for a restaurant, is not really an offer and we will win.”

If necessary, Miller said, the dispute will go to court.

And what of the Solomons, who are now in the middle of the cross-fire?

“It’s almost emotional,” said Richard.

“It is emotional,” said Jean. “Don’t people count?”