By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
The owners of the Machista Bar are scheduled to fight the city to stay open in the face of a nuisance abatement and revocation proceeding at the City Planning Department on May 21. The bar’s attorney, Kirt Hopson, doesn’t believe they will get a fair hearing, believing Councilman Tim McOsker rigged the system against his client.
Hopson sent me his brief in response to the Notice of Public Hearing plus clips of Councilman McOsker going to the establishment to speak with Machista Bar owner Jessica Vazquez. In a follow-up phone call to this reporter, he noted that the bar has been at 952 S Pacific Ave for 80 years, and at no point has the city tried to force a conditional use permit on the owners.
He called to learn where I stood on the issues after reading their side of the story in his brief before I could speak with Vazquez.
In his brief, Hopson argues that McOsker, driven by a personal agenda, has initiated a campaign to drive the Machista Bar, a minority and woman-owned bar out of business, citing that McOsker’s daughter purchased a home near the bar and is a resident there.
Hopson noted that five months after opening in April 2022, the Machista Bar was hit by multiple rounds of gunfire, shattering a glass door and a window. Hopson reports that the bar passed its first inspection without any penalties or negative inspection reports in January 2023. In May 2023, the bar was a victim of vandalism and theft after a transient gained access to their roof and stole the copper wiring in their AC unit. In November 2023, Machista Bar was visited by the Harbor Division’s vice squad for an inspection, an inspection initiated due to complaints about noise, patrons, and the aesthetics of the building. The Machista Bar, Hopson wrote, took action to correct the issues addressed and no further action was required. “The year 2023 ended on a good note,” he said.
On Jan. 2, McOsker visited the bar to speak with Vazquez. She wasn’t present. He left a message with the barkeeper. From the clips provided by Hopson, it’s only apparent that he stopped by the bar, and asked to speak with Vazquez. Another clip catching less than 30 seconds of conversation shows McOsker disagreeing with the barkeep’s characterization of the issues the bar was being asked to correct or mitigate.
Then there was the Jan. 20, 2024 shooting resulting in one death and two wounded, and an underage bar patron on the run as the shooter.
In phone calls to this reporter, Hopson explained that even before the shooting, City Councilman Tim McOsker had been turning the screws on the small business owner by staging DUI checkpoints near the bar and was doing it to benefit his daughter who purchased a house behind the bar. The LAPD’s vice squad visited the establishment at least once last year. Hopson said the bar addressed all issues and argued this was a case of McOsker using his power for the benefit of his daughter.
Hopson admits several calls were made to the police regarding incidents in the vicinity of the bar, but argues that most of those incidents had nothing to do with the bar and its patrons.
Going back into the archives of San Pedro’s print media, I was only able to find two shootings to occur at the address in 70 years. The first was a 1943 incident in which a British seaman followed a 28-year-old telephone operator to the Indian Bar and shot her. He escaped through the crowd into the back alley and was shot by police. He was later found in his room, wounded from police gunfire. Both the victim and the shooter survived.
The second shooting was during the commission of a robbery in 1965 when two masked gunmen accosted two patrons and the bartender of $239. One of the gunmen fired into the bar after one of the victims slammed her purse on the bar while complying with their order to empty its contents. Again, aside from some rattled nerves, all parties survived.
Vazquez and a partner purchased the bar, then known as Auggie’s Tavern, in 2021 and opened under the name, Machista Bar, in 2022 after renovations.
At the time, the new owners of the Machista Bar told RLn that they decided to open a bar that was a safe space for women of Hispanic heritage. Vazquez and her then-partner Monique, explained that “Machista” describes women who are powerful and in control.
The Jan. 20 shooting began as an altercation between two women, 18-year-old Estrella Rojas and Blanca Rosas, which then turned into a shooting, resulting in one person dead and two wounded.
When asked why there was an 18-year patron in the bar in the first place. Hopson’s answer was short: “She had a fake I.D. He didn’t go into any detail like whether her identification was state-issue identification or if she borrowed the identification from a friend or relative to whom she looked similar.
Hopson gave a cringeworthy response to the question of why an 18-year-old was even in the bar in the first place to get in an altercation with a woman in her thirties. It should be noted here that Rojas was involved in an altercation with the shooting victim’s common-law wife.
Random Lengths News never got to hear Jessica Vazquez’s thoughts about her bar’s troubles and the aftermath of the Jan. 20 shooting. Estrella Rojas has pleaded not guilty so far and her next hearing is June 5 at the Long Beach Courthouse while the public hearing on the Machista Bar’s Nuisance Abatement and Revocation is set to go forward May 21 at 10 a.m.
Random Lengths reached out to McOsker’s office but did not receive a response before we went to press.