{"id":72050,"date":"2025-11-27T10:57:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T10:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/72050\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T10:57:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T10:57:16","slug":"nicks-lighthouse-owners-vacate-property-as-part-of-settlement-into-federal-bribery-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/72050\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick\u2019s Lighthouse owners vacate property as part of settlement into federal bribery probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The couple who own Nick\u2019s Lighthouse have vacated the restaurant as part of a settlement agreement following a federal bribery investigation<\/a> that resulted in a prison sentence for one.<\/p>\n

The Port of San Francisco terminated the lease for the restaurant, located at the corner of Jefferson and Taylor streets, under the famous Fisherman\u2019s Wharf crab sign, and ordered Min \u201cJames\u201d Paik and Hye Paik to remove all property and cease operations.<\/p>\n

The couple were charged with two counts of bribery in 2024.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 20, Min Paik was sentenced to nine months in federal prison for bribing a port official and an undercover FBI agent in 2023, in an effort to secure a lucrative waterfront lease. He was ordered to pay $33,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, according to court documents. Hye Paik entered into a plea agreement for pretrial diversion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Min Paik allegedly paid $19,000 in cash to a Port of San Francisco employee and handed over envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in the presence of the FBI agent, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

The city attorney\u2019s office and port this year issued a suspension order against Nick\u2019s Lighthouse for up to five years, which would bar the restaurant from bidding on or entering into contracts with the city.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said the port is exploring \u201coptions\u201d for the vacated space.
While Nick\u2019s Lighthouse has left the space it has reportedly occupied (opens in new tab)<\/a> since the 1930s, it is still serving up hot sourdough bowls of clam chowder in its new space in The Cannery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The couple who own Nick\u2019s Lighthouse have vacated the restaurant as part of a settlement agreement following a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[17802,25377,101,103,102,104,106,105,37511],"class_list":["post-72050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bribery","tag-port-of-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sf-reality-check"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}