A longtime Chinatown-International District property owner is suing the City of Seattle, claiming that city leaders intentionally concentrated homeless encampments and drug activity in Little Saigon, destroying his family’s business and property in the process.
The lawsuit, filed by Dennis L. Chinn and Chinn Investments, LLC, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleges that city policies violated constitutional protections against discrimination and unlawful property takings.
Chinn accuses both current and former city officials of “misguided efforts to solve the homelessness crisis” that disproportionately impacted ethnic-minority neighborhoods.
According to the 33-page complaint, the Chinn family has owned property along South Jackson Street since the late 1940s.
The land became home to the Asian Plaza Shopping Center — once considered a cornerstone of Seattle’s Vietnamese community.
Over the decades, the plaza housed businesses like Viet Wah Supermarket, Tamarind Tree Restaurant, and Helping Link, becoming a cultural hub in Little Saigon.
Chinn’s complaint says that city policies and a lack of law enforcement response allowed open-air drug use, theft, and encampments to overrun the area, forcing every tenant — including Viet Wah — to shut down.
The supermarket closed permanently in September 2022 after 35 years in business.
Chinn alleges its closure stemmed directly from “the City of Seattle’s failure to enforce existing anti-theft laws.”
In court documents, Chinn describes the intersection of 12th Avenue and South Jackson Street as “a wasteland of drug use, homelessness, and squalor.”
He argues that Seattle’s tolerance of encampments and public drug activity amounts to a “taking” of private property under the Fifth Amendment because the city’s inaction has effectively stripped his family of its use and value.
The lawsuit further claims that Little Saigon has been “consciously and intentionally sacrificed by Seattle policymakers in order to keep other areas of the city free from such problems.”
After years of decline, Chinn’s main commercial building burned to the ground on June 10, 2024.
The Seattle Fire Department determined the likely cause was a fire started by squatters.
Chinn said that once utilities were cut off, the building was routinely broken into by thieves stripping copper wiring and pipes, eventually leaving it uninhabitable.
Chinn later attempted to sell the property to a developer, but the deal collapsed when lenders “were shocked at what they saw” in the neighborhood, according to the complaint.
He now says the property generates no income but remains subject to high property taxes.
In an affidavit filed earlier this month, Chinn’s son, Brian, added a personal injury claim after being assaulted by a man wielding a branch while he was clearing syringes and debris from the family’s hillside property in September.
He said Seattle police never responded to his 911 call.
The affidavit also includes a notice from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections, warning the Chinns that failure to remove the encampment and trash from their property could result in fines of up to $500 per day.
Brian said it cost the family $22,500 to clear the encampment and hazardous materials.
“I am continually concerned for my safety,” Brian Chinn wrote, describing frequent encounters with people trespassing or stealing on the property. “The City has caused this concentration of homeless individuals…and then requires me to remove them by threatening substantial fines.”
The lawsuit seeks damages under the Equal Protection Clause, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
It accuses Seattle of “selective non-enforcement” of criminal laws in Little Saigon and demands compensation for the destruction of the property, the loss of rental income, and the family’s cultural legacy.
The City of Seattle has not yet filed a response to the amended complaint.
©2025 Cox Media Group
