In three and a half years of living near a St. Paul bar, one family lived through four stray bullets hitting their house. Once, a bullet went through the dining room window and an interior wall and was stopped by their refrigerator.

“If we were home eating dinner one of us would’ve been shot in the head,” the woman, who has a young son, wrote to the St. Paul City Council as it weighed the fate of the license of El Alamo, a bar on St. Paul’s West Side.

Residents, neighborhood organizations and other businesses gathered last week at a public hearing to tell council members about gun violence inside and outside El Alamo on Robert Street, just down the street from Cesar Chavez Street.Last week, council members planned to vote on suspending the bar’s license for 10 days and fining the owners $2,000. Some residents urged council members to go further and revoke the bar’s license.

On Wednesday, the council voted unanimously to revoke the license — meaning El Alamo will be shut down.

About a dozen bars over the past 25 years have had licenses revoked in St. Paul. The last time was in 2015, according to the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections.

Jeff O’Brien, attorney for El Alamo LLC, said Wednesday he does not believe the city had legal grounds to revoke the license and they likely will challenge the decision.

“I think the city is misplacing the blame for different issues in the community,” O’Brien said. “All the bad people aren’t coming in from all over the state and congregating at El Alamo. There are folks from the community that are causing these issues. … If they revoke El Alamo’s license and then another shooting happens next week, what business are they going to blame now?”

City Council member Rebecca Noecker, who represents the area, said at last week’s meeting that she appreciated owner Harry “Dutch” Erkenbrack’s apology to the community and she understood the challenges of running a small business.

But, she said to Erkenbrack: “We’re talking about bullets, and I can’t be understanding when your business is such a threat to the community that I represent. … I really believe … the chronic and repeated history of criminal activity in and around the bar — and frankly, the public health threat to the neighborhood and the immediate neighbors and the community, as a whole — justify this (revocation).”

GUN BATTLE OUTSIDE IN SEPTEMBER, SHOOTING INSIDE IN JANUARY

The city granted El Alamo a liquor license in March 2009.

Beginning in August 2013, “there was a rise in regulatory problems,” administrative law judge Eric Lipman wrote in a Jan. 8 ruling about the bar. In that month, the bar failed an alcohol compliance check. Related Articles AP source: Envelope addressed to White House contained ricin

ND angler’s YouTube videos let him quit his day job

Trump pledges woman for court, pushes Senate to move on pick

Trump backs proposed deal to keep TikTok operating in US

Ginsburg’s death draws big surge of donations to Democrats

During the first 11 months of 2017, police responded to 33 calls for service at the bar. Six involved use of a weapon, five involved an aggravated assault, one involved a robbery, two involved an intoxicated person and 19 involved a disturbance of the peace, Lipman wrote.

In September, a shootout erupted in front of the bar’s entrance and in its parking lot, Lipman wrote. Police reported finding 45 casings from at least three guns. No one was injured, but vehicles were struck by the gunfire and a resident in the area reported his house was hit by a stray bullet, according to police.

“City officials concluded that lapses by El Alamo’s security staff had contributed to the outbreak of violence,” Lipman wrote.

Lipman ruled the city demonstrated that the bar failed “to adhere to the conditions upon its liquor and business licenses” and there was “substantial and compelling reasons for an upward departure beyond the presumptive penalty of $1,000.”

Before the case was before the city council for a vote, there was another shooting. On Jan. 26, a 27-year-old man was shot and wounded inside the bar. Erkenbrack said at the time that nothing happened in the bar that precipitated it.

CONCERN FROM NEIGHBORHOOD, SUPPORT FROM SOME

For the last year, the West Side Community Organization has answered calls from angry and terrified neighbors of the bar, said Monica Bravo, executive director. They held multiple meetings and worked with residents “to keep sharing the stories and report the problems to police and DSI (Department of Safety and Inspections),” she said.

At least week’s city council meeting, people came to the public hearing to express their concerns about the bar.

“Our neighbors and partners on the West Side are working to create a safe and vital community,” Neighborhood House President Nancy Brady wrote to council members. “… Unfortunately over the past year, all that work has been threatened. Gun violence, fighting, and criminal behavior has continued to be present just blocks from all of our doors at El Alamo Bar.”

Representatives of CommonBond Communities, which runs the nearby Torre de San Miguel Homes, told the council in a letter they have more than 500 residents, of which more than 300 are children.

“The children are afraid to walk home …,” the letter said. “Some youth are not allowed to participate in programs because their parents are fearful of them walking in close proximity to the bar.”

The council also received emails in support of El Alamo.

The bar “has provided a great space for those in need, including fundraisers for sick and less fortunate,” wrote Vicki Garcia, who said she feels the bar “has been under attack by individuals who are not customers.”

Joe Smith, who said he works at El Alamo, wrote that “it is upsetting and frustrating that a few incidents or people can make outside people judge the bar or customers of the bar. … The Alamo is a GREAT bar with all kinds of customers from different walks of life.”

OWNER APOLOGIZES

Erkenbrack told the council last week — before the revocation discussion — that he and his wife had decided to try to sell the business.

“All we want to do is try and … leave the neighborhood a little bit better than when we entered it by trying to do something to improve that property and make it a nicer place for everybody,” he said.

When St. Paul revokes a bar’s license, city ordinance says another bar cannot go in the same spot for 15 years.

If the space becomes a restaurant under new ownership, the Department of Safety and Inspections would consider a restaurant license with wine and beer as a menu item, a department spokesman said.

Related Articles St. Paul rec center hours, aquatics, ice rinks face budget hit

St. Paul City Council debates halting charter school bond requests for six months

Betty McCollum raises questions about St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s guaranteed basic income project

St. Paul City Council relaxes housing density restrictions near transit corridors

How Mayor Carter’s proposed budget will impact libraries, Fire Dept., Public Works Erkenbrack also told council members that he was initially in denial about the situation and believed they were “getting railroaded.” But when he received the administrative law judge ruling, Erkenbrack said he realized he had used “bad judgment,” “hired the wrong type of entertainment and … let the crowd get out of hand.”

“I want to apologize to the neighborhood for the misery that they’ve gone through in the time we’ve had it, apologize to the city and the police department for doubting their integrity at times,” he said.

IF YOU GO

West Side neighbors have also been “coming together in many ways to reclaim their quality of life, not only affiliated with crime and gun violence,” said Monica Bravo, West Side Community Organization executive director.

The community organization’s theme this year is “West Side Rising” and they’re inviting people to the launch of “Our Streets, Our Stories” on Feb. 27, 6-9 p.m., at 88 Cesar Chavez St.