Cleveland Heights Serves ‘The Grandview Pizza Oven’ at Chagrin Documentary Film Fest

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — One of the slices of life offered this week at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival will be the official premiere of “The Grandview Pizza Oven.”

“The most delightfully absurd neighborhood feud you’ve ever seen, this documentary proves that truth is stranger than fiction,” the festival promo declares.

“Watch a simple backyard hobby turn into a national spectacle. »

The short documentary produced and directed by Cleveland Heights resident Adam Dew chronicles the long legal battle over a wood-fired oven built in the spring of 2017 by Paul Schambs and Mary Lynn Newsome.

The pizza oven became an immediate hit on the street, although neighbors downwind filed complaints early on about smoke and fumes entering their apartment on the upper floor of the building from which they are owners, renting out the rest, including Airbnb units.

The City of Cleveland Air Quality Division and the Cuyahoga County Board of Health were also consulted.

The Joneses said it caused significant physical discomfort and emotional distress, forcing them to leave their home as the oven preheated and weather conditions blew smoke toward them.

The flashpoint came in the spring and summer of 2019, when court testimony indicated police were summoned once by the Joneses. In another incident, firefighters were called twice in the same day.

The fire department was called another time, but that turned out to be an occasion when Schambs and Newsome were out of town.

The neighbor across the street was trying to light the oven while they were gone – using a different type of wood.

This neighbor also received a separate visit from firefighters while using a smoker for ribs in his backyard.

Speaking at a city council meeting in July 2019, Brooks Jones asked officials to help “do something to end this matter amicably.”

All parties admit they were previously friends. But Schambs and Newsome ended up filing a harassment complaint against the Joneses when they realized they were being filmed in their backyard.

The Joneses said they did so to create a record that ultimately ended up as evidence in their July 2021 lawsuit filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

They asked the jury to return a verdict that the pizza oven was a public nuisance and should be shut down, along with $25,000 in damages.

After a four-day trial, the jury found in favor of Schambs and Newsome, and returned its verdict in about 30 minutes.

That’s about the length of the documentary “The Grandview Pizza Oven,” one of three “Ohio Stories,” premiering Wednesday (Oct. 2) at 5:30 p.m. at the Chagrin Falls Intermediate School Theater.

A free screening will then take place at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 5, at the village’s Triangle Park.

Filmed on location

Dew joined in early in the controversy, speaking on behalf of Schambs and Newsome at the same Cleveland Heights council meeting as Jones in 2019.

And with his own company Dew Diligence Productions, he began filming himself, from backyard rallies to more in-depth interviews in the courtroom.

Dew said he showed the Joneses the documentary in late September, after they repeatedly offered to include them in the film and also on a separate podcast.

As was the case with this story, they declined to comment.

Schambs, who planned to attend the premiere, offered his take on the odyssey.

He pointed out that they also had no air conditioning in their home and that, with the second floor windows open, the smoke detector never went off.

“They threw the kitchen sink at us, along with everything else,” said the home restoration contractor who built the stone and brick oven from scratch as a gift for Newsome, a nurse and therapist.

Testimony also indicates that the Joneses offered to pay for the services of a third-party mediator, with their first choice being a former Cleveland Heights inspections chief.

Schambs said he abandoned the idea after noticing he was texting the Joneses while inspecting the oven.

Aside from that, Schambs said, “One lawyer told us (before trial) that ‘you’ve won every time – why would you want to mediate?’ » »

The Joneses also offered to pay for a chimney extension on the kiln up to 16 feet high, about double the current height.

Schambs said this would have affected the “draft” and subsequent temperature in the oven, which proved to be another failure in any negotiation.

As for attorney fees, Newsome’s homeowner’s insurance covered those legal fees, while the Joneses paid the relatively minor court costs.

For the first time in about three months, Schambs said he turned on the oven last weekend for Newsome’s visiting colleagues.

They can accommodate up to 15 people at a time, although there were many more for Schambs’ birthday party.

“We don’t use it very often, so when we do, we make several pizzas at once,” Schambs said.

Dew noted that several people have asked him about a future showing of “The Grandview Pizza Oven” at the Cedar Lee Theater and he hasn’t ruled out the possibility.

(To watch the film trailer, click here.)

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