Would seem to be the only argument needed.
“We don’t have them anymore, the cops took them.”
The argument that providing the video would burden the restaurant’s managers is really stupid. They’re interested in basically at most a couple of hours, with the exact time well known.
Exactly.
If there were 16 cameras, and the period of interest is two hours, that's 32 hours of video to review, not hundreds. And how many of the 16 cameras were pointed at Twin Peaks?
And, in any case, you wouldn't want to "burden" the restaurant management with the task of doing the reviewing. That task should be entrusted to the defense's experts.