Perkins restaurants to be sold

An advertisement in the Oct.

29 edition of the Wall Street Journal stated the restaurants will gross more than $8 million this year.

Frank D'Agostino declined an interview, saying he thought a story would hurt his workers and his business. The family also owns the Perkins restaurants off U.S. 41 North and U.S. 41 East and one in Estero near Miromar Outlets.

In April 2002, a controversy started over the flagpole at the Perkins off Pine Ridge Road with some residents criticizing Collier County workers who said the pole violated county code.

The pole, 23 feet over the 50-foot county height limit on flagpoles, was installed without a permit.

After the Perkins owners collected 3,000 signatures from residents, Collier County commissioners granted the D'Agostinos a variance in January. However, the flag still needed to be reinstalled because it wasn't set far enough into the ground and it was leaning.

"They couldn't find anybody to certify that it was in there correctly," said Lisa Koehler, spokeswoman for the county's Community Development and Environmental Services division.

She said the county permitted the flagpole June 16.

Lynn Kirby, one of the owners of Nu-Cape Construction in Cape Coral, which was the contractor on the project, said his company reinstalled the pole at Perkins.

Using a crane, the pole was removed and reset in the packing sand.

Nu-Cape is scheduled to return to align the flagpole this week.

Kirby said it's common to have to realign the poles because sand at the base sometimes shifts.