Failure to get a food operation into the airport because of the burger wars has cost Government nearly $150,000 in lost revenue, Transport Minister Ewart Brown told MPs on Friday.

And he said the space had remained vacant because of court proceedings by Grape Bay Ltd. -- who wanted to put a McDonald's at the airport -- and Government.

The news came as a result of a series of questions by UBP MP Trevor Moniz -- one of the rebel group of then-Government MPs who forced through a law banning fast food franchises with a foreign flavour in 1997.

Dr. Brown added that the proposed lease with Grape Bay had not been brought to the House because arguments over the validity of the anti-burger law were to be taken to the Island's final court of appeal, the Privy Council in London.

But Mr. Moniz -- himself a lawyer -- said: "My own legal view, for what it's worth, is that there is no impediment to this being brought before the House.'' Dr. Brown told Mr. Moniz: "I must take legal advice on whether or not the proposed lease can be tabled in the House.

"If I am advised that there is no legal impediment to laying the proposed lease before both houses of the Legislature, I will do so with above-average speed.'' Dr. Brown earlier said any lease for one year up at the airport had to be approved by the House and Senate -- but that because of the long-running legal row, it had never been brought to the House.

And he took a swipe at the former UBP Government, which split over the issue, by giving the lost revenue in pre- and post-PLP Government terms.

He explained because of the terms of the draft lease, where a minimal annual guarantee or a percentage of gross annual revenue, whichever was higher would be paid to Government, only the minimum loss could be calculated.

And Dr. Brown said that broke down to $121,248 before the PLP's November 9 victory and $25,418 since then.

He added that temporary concessions had offset the loss to the tune of $36,255 over the period from March, 1997 to December 31 last year, leaving a balance of $110,411 lost -- around $5000 a month.

The Grape Bay case is likely to be heard by the Law Lords of London sometime in the spring of this year.

The Prohibited Restaurants Act 1997 -- piloted through the House by ex-MP Ann Cartwright DeCouto, who lost her Pembroke West Central seat in the PLP landslide last year -- was pushed through the House with the support of the then-Opposition PLP.

Grape Bay Ltd. lost an appeal on the legality of the Act -- which they claimed was unconstitutional because it deprived them of property.

But the firm -- headed up by ex-UBP Premier Sir John Swan and ex-Minister Maxwell Burgess, now a Senator -- vowed to fight the decision all the way to London.

AIRPORT FLY RESTAURANT EAT