SAN ANTONIO – A judge has ordered the shutdown of an East Side bar for public nuisance.
Twin Sisters Cantina, located at 1701 South Hackberry, was boarded up and fenced to block entry on Friday morning.
After hundreds of service calls and dozens of shootings, including several just this week, the City of San Antonio has temporarily shut down operations at the bar.
“(This bar) caught our attention because over the last three years they’ve had over 300 calls for service,” Joe Niño said. Niño is the Deputy City Attorney at the Prosecution Division. “It’s been a major disaster, basically for the citizens and neighboring communities in that area as well.”
Police records state the most recent call for a shooting in progress was Wednesday around 3:40 a.m.
The city and neighbors are fed up.
“We’ve almost gotten to the point where we’re having shootings every night or every morning,” Anna Hardcastle said.
Hardcastle said she constantly witnesses the chaos from inside her home just a few feet away. “It’s a free for all and they start coming at 2:30 in the morning and running (until) the sun comes up.”
The temporary restraining order, which was granted Thursday afternoon, will only remain active for two weeks, but Niño said they will petition for the business to stay closed for at least a year.
“We’ll go back in two weeks and do a temporary injunction, and at that time we’ll be asking the court to basically close it down until trial is set,” Niño said.
Hardcastle said it gives her and other concerned neighbors hope they’ll soon have peace and quiet.
“(It’s) a sigh of relief, at least for the short term,” Hardcastle said.
A man by the name Israel Castro is listed on court records as the owner of Twin Sisters Cantina.
“Back in December, the city went ahead and gave Castro a notice to vacate, (and) the power was turned off. However, Mr. Castro continued to go to the location and have after-hour parties,” Niño said.
KSAT 12 reached out to Castro over the phone, however, he declined to comment on the matter and allegations against his business.
Niño clarified that Castro only leases the building. Daren Hensley is the owner of the lot and property. Hensley’s lawyer, Todd Taylor, said his client has also had enough of the illegal activity and wants Castro permanently out of the property.
“He owes rent from at least October of 2021, so much so that we had to take action, file an eviction proceeding against him,” Taylor said. “We have won a hearing in a Justice of the Peace Court, and the tenant has appealed that objection.”
As for this week’s ruling for the temporary restraining order, Taylor said his client is happy.
“It worked in my client’s interests at getting the operations of the property seized, which is something we were trying to do by evicting (Castro),” Taylor said. “(My client) is in the process of selling the property, and so, we need to get the tenant (out of) there for that reason as well.”
On Friday afternoon, a city employee returned to the property to place another notice of a public hearing in front of the city’s Building Standards Board.
The notice lists repairs that need to be made to the building. If the repairs are not completed and the board determines the building is a public nuisance, it could be demolished at the owner’s expense.