San Jose aims to shut down sports bar
San Jose: City aims to shut down Agave Sports Bar for alleged prostitution, other illegal activities.
Alarmed by what they describe as illegal and dangerous activities taking place at a San Jose sports bar, the city wants to shut it down for good.
The lawsuit, filed by the city of San Jose on June 6 in Santa Clara County Superior Court, alleges that the owners and operators of Agave Sports Bar & Grill at 544 Alma Avenue have encouraged prostitutes to solicit customers, allowed patrons to drive away when they are clearly inebriated and repeatedly violated public health orders aimed to curb the spread of COVID-19.
The city is seeking to have a judge declare the sports bar a nuisance and permanently close it. The city also wants to collect more than $25,000 from the restaurant owners for violating city codes.
The lawsuit comes a month after a man who was on an alcohol-and-cocaine bender upon leaving Agave backed up his constriction-grade pick-up truck into a group of unsuspecting patrons in the bar’s outdoor dining area, killing one woman and injuring two others. Court documents later revealed that the suspect was receiving oral sex moments before the crash.
“When we take actions like this it’s because (the business) poses serious quality of life issues for the community,” San Jose City Attorney Nora Frimann said in an interview. “Either the business is dangerous and poses health and safety issues or there are a lot of community complaints.”
In this case, Frimann said, the establishment’s “inappropriate and illegal activity is dangerous to public health and is causing a drain on police resources.”
From the outside, the single-story beige building looks like a regular holei-n-the-wall restaurant and bar. A fenced off outdoor area is dotted with tables and red umbrellas while inside disco balls hang from low ceilings, shimmering against the dark walls. The sign along Alma Avenue that once donned the restaurant’s name and logo has been wiped clean since the
fatal crash, though the business is still operating.
Along with the bar, the suit names owners and operators Manuel Andrade Trujillo and Lady Lizcano and Meli’s Restaurant, a second San Jose business owned by the pair where officers have also uncovered women soliciting prostitution. Multiple calls by this news organization to Agave and its owners went unanswered. An employee on site on July 13 said no managers were available to speak with a reporter.
Agave — which is not operated in association with other similarly named businesses in San Jose and other Bay Area cities — has been a sore spot for local law enforcement for months.
Throughout the pandemic, the restaurant incurred $71,750 in civil fines from the Santa Clara County for operating as an illicit nightclub in defiance of indoor dining, gathering bans and masking mandates. When public health restrictions were still in place, members of the local bar industry described the operation to a Bay Area News Group reporter as a speakeasy that provided patrons with elaborate instructions on how to avoid detection by authorities.
The restaurant owners entered into a compliance agreement with the county, which reduced their fines to $28,700. As of July 13, they have paid approximately $7,000. They did not report an COVID-19 outbreaks to the county, according to records recently obtained by this news organization.
Since December 2020, the San Jose Police Department has conducted a handful of undercover investigations at both Agave and Meli’s reports of prostitution. Officers have arrested at least three women who agreed to perform sexual acts in exchange for money, according to the lawsuit.
In one case, a woman informed officers that employees and management knew that they initiated their prostitution acts at the bar and that the owners paid them based on how much beer they encouraged customers to buy, the lawsuit states.
During that same time period, officers responded to at least half a dozen reports of fights, narcotics, use of weapons and gunfire both inside and outside of Agave, according to the suit.
The lawsuit states that allowing the establishment to continue operating could cause “great and irreparable harm,” adding that the current business practices jeopardize the health, safety and welfare of those in and around the business.