Grand Canyon Times

A Fountain Hills business owner is due to appear in court this week on what she says are overreaching charges for people allegedly eating outside her pizza cafe when restaurants were closed to all but carryout and delivery.

Despite efforts to comply with the state’s order, Merita Kraya, owner of the Euro Pizza Café on Saguaro Boulevard, told the Grand Canyon Times she was cited by Maricopa County.

“I’m fighting against this unjust application of law,” said Kraya, who has owned Euro Pizza for nearly two decades. The citation, according to Kraya, was for people eating outside the restaurant after they had picked up their orders.

A court appearance was scheduled for May 20.

“Obviously I am entering a not guilty plea and we’ll take it from there,” Kraya said. “They tried to portray me as a criminal and it’s completely unjust.”

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office did not return a request for comment.

Kraya, who left communist Albania as a political refugee in 1990, worked in engineering and used those skills to design bars and restaurants. She opened Euro Pizza shortly after 9/11 and has run it ever since. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Kraya said, she’s been able to keep about half of her 42 employees on the payroll by offering efficient takeout service in a great location, overlooking the town’s namesake Fountain Park.

As the state’s limitations on businesses are scaled back, Kraya hopes to bring back more of her staff, who, she says, are like family.

The Goldwater Institute recently connected Kraya with an attorney, Marc Victor, through its pro bono American Freedom Network.

“Whatever one thinks of the orders, there is no question that the law should be fairly and equitably enforced. That does not appear to have happened here,” Victor said in a post on the institute’s “In Defense of Liberty” blog. “We intend to litigate this issue as far as necessary to get justice for Merita.”

Kraya said she is not a victim and that she is trying to fight back. She said the unjust treatment of small business owners is unacceptable and that the public should not allow that.