BRIGHTON PARK — The city shut down two neighborhood businesses for building violations three days after a deadly gang shooting pushed Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th) to call for the properties to be closed to stop gang loitering.
It turns out that sending city inspectors to problem buildings after shootings is a common tactic used to clean up neighborhoods on the South Side.
“Unfortunately," Lopez said, "we have to use all the tools in our arsenal, and inspections are one them."
The businesses — Mercado 43, a neighborhood market, and Taqueria La Cantera, a popular taco shop — sit near the intersection of 43rd and Rockwell streets, a longtime hotspot for gang activity and the sight of several recent gang shootings.
It's a place that makes mothers nervous to walk their children to school across the street at Shields Elementary.
The last shooting near that intersection happened at 3:29 p.m. Dec. 16, killing two people — one of them an innocent bystander — and seriously wounding two others. After the weekend bloodshed, Ald. Lopez sent a letter to city commissioners urging them to shut down the two businesses.
He called intersection an “open-air drug market" that the business owners allow to operate.
“I have requested several times for [police] intervention at these locations because of persistent gang and drug activities,” Lopez wrote in the letter to Maria Guerra Lapacek, commissioner of the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, and Judith Frydland, commissioner of the Department of Buildings.
By Monday afternoon, both businesses were shut down.
In the front window of each building is an orange "NOTICE" sticker letting the neighborhood know the buildings pose dangers to tenants and anyone else inside.
“This is part of the commissioners’ efforts to make sure all the ordinances are being followed and check for any possible violations,” Lopez said. “Obviously there were many.”
Mercado 43 received violations for "obstructed" exits and "open electrical boxes with live wiring hanging out," according to city records.
Tony Arranda, the 32-year-old owner of Mercado 43, is trying to fix his building as soon as he can. He's losing money every day.
"They're telling me the paperwork is going to take about a week to be up in the system," Arranda said, "That's taking a lot of time from my business. It's Christmas. That's the only business I have. I got three people working with me. All of us are going to be missing money for Christmas."
Taqueria La Cantera received a violation for operating as a restaurant without any approved plans or permits, city records show.
"I feel very bad and frustrated, because the restaurant has nothing to do with what happened," said Maria Marquez, the taqueria owner. "It's a public place, and we all need to take care of our customers. I don't think it's the right reason to shut us down."
After Lopez sent the letter to the commissioners asking to close the businesses, neighborhood folks attacked him on Facebook — but the alderman is not sympathetic to his detractors.
"What would their actions have been if a fourth-grader had been shot? Or a group of parents had been shot?” Lopez said. “I don’t think they would be as sympathetic.”
Lopez is not the first alderman on the South Side to lead city inspectors to trouble buildings.
If there's a shooting in the 11th Ward, Ald. Patrick D. Thompson (11th) gets on the phone and calls downtown.
“Any time there are shootings like this, I speak with the building commissioner the next day, and all those buildings are being inspected,” Thompson said at a summertime CAPS meeting. “We are doing our part in making sure property owners are responsible.”
Shutting down problem buildings is a big step toward eliminating gangs on the streets, Lopez said.
“I’m glad, if nothing else, this is making us have a long, overdue conversation,” he said.
Read the city's "Order To Vacate" documents here:
Order To Vacate: Taqueria La Cantera
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