A tavern keeper's last stand at the Alamo
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- Опубликовано: 6 окт 2024
- Vince Cantu says the eminent domain threats to seize his property are "stupidly ironic" and "completely un-Texan."
reason.com/vid...
"I'm right in the battlefield of why Texas is Texas," says Vince Cantu, who runs Moses Rose's Hideout, a San Antonio, Texas, bar that's on the site of the Alamo and the famous 1836 battle that was memorialized on the big screen by the likes of John Wayne and Billy Bob Thornton.
Cantu opened Moses Rose's-named ironically after the Texas legend who fled the Alamo instead of standing his ground and fighting-in 2010 after it had sat vacant for many years. He comes from four generations of San Antonio tavern owners.
"I feel like I am on the shoulders of giants," says Cantu. "I like what I do, and I like where I do it. "
The Alamo Trust, a nonprofit that manages the site, wants to expand the Alamo museum, which would include building a theater and civil rights exhibit where Moses Rose's Hideout currently stands. Cantu says that in 2016, the group made its first offer of a million dollars, signed by then-Land Commissioner George P. Bush, which would've barely covered his outstanding loans. Four years later, they upped it to $2 million.
At the outset, the $400 million museum expansion project was supposed to be paid for by private donors. When funding fell through, the state of Texas stepped in to cover the cost. The Alamo project leads made two more offers, which Cantu rejected. He said he'd sell for $15 million. So state officials, who declined to participate in this story, countered by threatening to take his property using eminent domain. Cantu would receive a so-called "fair market price" based on an independent appraiser's estimate of the property's current value.
The appraiser valued it at $2.1 million today and at an estimated $2.8 million in 10 years. In December, the Alamo Trust offered $3.5 million, which Cantu quickly declined.
"They've wanted to negotiate with me over my property, but they wanted a loaded gun to do it," says Cantu, who says the offer is a lowball when he's seen his property values increase by about 18 percent year-over-year and only expects the business to become more valuable as downtown San Antonio grows. "They've wanted the threat of eminent domain hanging over my head [to force] me to take their number."
A pissed-off Cantu started tacking on an extra million-dollar fee to his offer each year that the government threatened him with eminent domain.
Then, earlier this year, George P. Bush (the son of Jeb and the nephew of George W.) called Cantu's refusal to sell at the state's price "dishonorable."
"I told my wife that if I saw [Bush], I would challenge him to a duel in front of the Alamo," says Cantu, laughing. "We'd use squirt guns, not real guns…just to avenge my honor."
Bush didn't respond to Reason's request for comment.
Cantu says he's willing to sell but that he just wants a good enough offer to justify walking away from a successful business that he struggled to build in what he says was once a dilapidated part of town.
"It was a bunch of homeless people [in this neighborhood]," says Cantu, who says the early days of live music at Moses Rose's Hideout consisted mostly of "homeless guys with guitars." As downtown developed over the following decade, Cantu's attracted wealthier clientele, including tourists visiting the Alamo. "It just kind of started clicking downtown, started opening up a little bit."
The San Antonio City Council voted in late January to authorize the use of eminent domain, which would allow the city to condemn and acquire the property to hand to the Alamo Trust-if Cantu doesn't take their state-backed offer.
After his interview with Reason, Cantu met with the Alamo Trust's attorneys. He says they offered him $2.4 million, more than a million dollars less than what they had offered him before the city authorized the eminent domain process.
"It was just a bad faith bullshit negotiation that they had to have before they could start [the] eminent domain [process]," says Cantu.
But he has vowed to keep fighting.
"A Texan is [for] small government and fiercely independent," says Cantu. "It's totally un-Texan. It's stupidly ironic."
Produced by Liz Wolfe and Zach Weissmueller; edited by Danielle Thompson; camera by Andrew Miller.
Photos: Bob Daemmrich/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; JAMES GREGG/TNS/Newscom
Music: "Do It Again" by Jay Putty via Artlist; "Restless" by Sunriver via Artlist; "For the City" by Sean Magwire via Artlist; "Restless Rebels" by Evert Z via Artlist; "Outlaws of the Old West" by Evert Z via Artlist
Update: The Alamo Trust emailed after publication to say that following the failed mediation session, it upped its offer to $4 million plus relocation expenses. Cantu has rejected that latest offer.
Eminent domain is supposed to be used for necessary purposes like roads, bridges etc. not for museum upgrades.
Who decides what is a "necessary purpose" and what isn't? and using what criteria? Eminent domain is a form of theft, and no exceptions should be allowed or tolerated.
Even worse, Imminent Domain is only supposed to happen to minorities and the poor! The fact that it makes the news when it happens to a white guy’s bar near a government-backed tourist trap says it all.
Enjoy the wealth that all the freeways, railways, airports, power stations, treatment plants, pipelines, landfills, housing developments, and (yes) government preserved tourist attractions have created while this sad, lawyered-up snowflake cries foul for being paid to move his bar.
I’m sure everyone who was plowed out and tossed chump-change (if anything!) for their neighborhoods, homes, farms and businesses would appreciate a belated tear that any of you (so-called) libertarians are crying for this poor poster child of government’s inhumanity to one (white) man.
Btw: How on Earth did you all make it through the Keystone pipeline protests? Oop! Wait, those were just Indians on a GENEROUSLY provided reservation. Never mind.
@Carlo Dave of course you make it all about race. It doesn't matter what the race is. It's the purpose of using it. I know it's been misused in the past and will be again in the future. This guy will likely lose his case too. Pipelines are much more important than museums btw
@@andresd3104 No truer words spoken!
To bad the Supreme Court has routinely failed Americans in regards to their property.
How many decades did the city / state have to truly turn a blighted neighborhood around before entrepreneurs bought the properties and did it on their own? Build around the successful businesses or don’t build at all.
or pay them fair
🤯
Museums are not necessary things worthy of using eminent domain.
Let alone a study on what the tangible return would be. Not just a footprint expansion. What would that be, Texas? I don't see lines of people clamoring to see it.
His bar is a small one story building attached to the west side of a three story building. There is a small pedestrian walkway, maybe 6 feet wide between the bar and a parking garage. They want to remove the bar for improved pedestrian access. You say that it's for public right of way, exactly what eminent domain is designed for
@@Bugpop No eminent domain is designed for when there is no other possible way to do what they need. For pedestrian access they could build a tunnel people could use if they deem the need for such traffic.
@@DarkHorseSki is less expensive to relocate the bar, which is exactly why they offered 3.5 million dollars. Instead Cantu's corporation wants 16 million dollars, as though there's no possible way they can make the same amount of money once relocated.
@@Bugpop Eminent domain is not about allowing government to steal (and that is what they are doing when they take something against the will of the other and without reaching a price the other agrees to) something because it is less expensive. They have options that do not require stealing that property, they are obligated to do them. They could tunnel, or bridge, or they could find other, amenable, property owners near where they want the walk and buy them out.
Eminent domain is an odious concept.
I wish this man all the best in his efforts to get his offer.
Vince Cantu carries the spirit of the men of the Alamo the way they would have wanted it to be carried. They did not get slaughtered to serve as a 21st Century tourist attraction and to think differently is a warped disposition.
He’s Mexican. He would probably be spat upon by the slave owners in the Alamo
The absolute irony of trying to take a man's business by force to build a museum to celebrate The Alamo, a site known for refusing to cave in to aggression. 🙄😡
🤬🤬🤬
Upside; he knows how to defend it.
He needs to post memes asking "would Davy Crockett support the government seizing a man's business by force to "celebrate" The Alamo"? 🤔🤠
using eminent domain to make a civil rights museum is peak irony.
Ain't it just ‼️
I really hate that I automatically think this nowadays, but I suspect they don't actually mean civil rights. Most likely it will be a race socialist exhibition that focuses on how evil Texans were/are.
*I thought Blacks were Freed 180 Years ago? Maybe the Democrats should fund it since they started and still run the KKK and Invented JIM CROW laws as well.*
@@johnslugger you realize that civil rights isnt just freeing of slaves dumbass. also good trolling if thats what ur doing
@@joiscode3832 *You tell me "DUMBASS" (name caller low-life) if Whites and Blacks are both FREE why Blacks need more help? We have MORE Black millionaires than ANY other country in the world! Why? It just takes HARD WORK! (and maybe a real tough father at home like the Jackson family. The Jackson family had Reveille at 4:00AM every morning by Bugle call! Tough Dad = Rich Kids!)*
He should raise a "Come And Take It" flag over his tavern.
I'm in complete agreement with him. How far does this Alamo nonprofit want to expand? I doubt it will stop here.
The national parks are even working to keep visitors out by phasing out passenger vehicles in the parks. It pisses me off. They refuse to build more roads and they want to force us to ride buses in the parks. I brought that up because the national parks continue to expand and tear down buildings (at least RMNP does).
This dude's gotta keep his bar or there's gonna be an Alamo part 2 to keep this bar in his possession
If some public facility, a road, a bridge, a museum, whatever, is so valuable to the people, fair market value should be whatever the owner demands. It the state (the people) aren't willing to pay, how bad do they need whatever it is anyway?
It might be "untexan" but it's very "government"
🤯
The "Texan" thing would be to dig in like a rock and MAKE them "come and take it", an ethos they are literally trying to celebrate with their planned museum.
Government = largest gang of thugs and goons in the land.
@@ShomoGoldburgler ‼️are you suggesting that govt is a protection racket ⁉️
@@wheel-man5319
*A mafia*
* A cartel*
Stand your ground, Vince Cantu.
Isn't it sad that one of the states that was most aghast at the Kelo decision and passed laws to make sure it wouldn't happen there is doing this? The large cities in Texas are just too insulated from the rest of Texas' political and civil rights beliefs.
If the state passed laws to make sure this wouldn't happen there, then why is it happening there?
For dumb border walls and semi religious revisionist shrines
"Stupidly Ironic" - understatement of the year.
Virtually NO project, even government projects, are truly necessary. Almost all projects are capable of being relocated to avoid conflicts like this.
He has been offered enough money to relocate to a substantially similar location.
If the state goes through with this theft, it will just ad a layer of dishonor to the Alamo. Permanently!
Best of luck to him. I'd love to hear the justification as to why they need an Alamo theater. Here in ussny, the gov't can "legally" use eminent domain to steal property for private business, and they're currently in the process of doing just that in the Syracuse area to build a Micron factory.
Extra ironic that it’s happening because the government wants more space for their “alamo” museum
You can't just appraise the business location, you would have to appraise the business too. You'd be kicking the guy out and only buying out the property. We've had that problem in other places in Texas. A family was thrown out of their 25 year home by eminent domain in a border town. I believe that was the case. Thrown out for sure, not sure on the length of time in the house. Regardless they were thrown out and over a stupid future plan that could possibly put many people in danger.
The government must have its palaces.
In the US, we have three kinds of palaces: homes belonging to successful Americans, buildings belonging to successful businesses (eg, banks, insurance companies, etc.), and buildings where bureaucrats, politicians, and judges lord over us.
Perhaps the Institute for Justice could help Mr. Cantu…
You should be rewarded for your work
This is kind of Ayn Rand argument that makes normal people become a libertarian, like respect the little folk, why he should leave his property against his will. I can't see the difference between that and mafia (this is exactly what don Corleone does, he points a gun to the poor guy and says, your brain or your signature in the contract, and pays up a small fraction of the value).
He needs to sue the state in federal court. We had a similar situation in the state I live in. The state took part of a businesses property too widen a road. They offered him a ridiculously low amount for it, and loss of business during construction. He sued in federal court, and won. And on top of that the judge awarded the owner extra for his time, and trouble some of which was for mental distress. He ended up with a little more than 1 million dollars, which was about 3 times what he asked for initially from the state. And that not the only one like that that's happened in the state I live in. So far every one that I know of these cases that I know of has won, or the state has settled out of court for a fair amount.
Eminent domain should be at 2x the fair market value imo.
10x to make them cautious.
Fair market value is an irrelevant term for someone not looking to sell.
Shouldn't exist at all... Property rights should be infringeable.
@@ShomoGoldburgler maybe you mean unalienable? That means the government may not infringe on them.
@@wheel-man5319 sorry, if that be the word, then that's it.
As a fellow SA res who grew up blocks away from the Alamo, good for him!
Is it any surprise from George P. Bush? He hired a Mexican based company for the upkeep of the Alamo. The irony doesn't stop with this guy.
How does anyone with that last name still end up in office? Same thing I ask whenever I hear someone mention Liz Cheney or any other family dynasty.
@@swolebro Texans love that idiot family of Connecticut carpet baggers.
@@swolebro Family of nobility, excuse me political dynasty.
Mexican American cops from the SAPD now guard the Alamo from vandals. When I went someone had just spray painted the cenotaph and tensions were running high.
@@swolebrohe lost the AG race to the criminal Ken Paxton
The original : Come and take it... I love San Antonio......
I like how he just casually drops that he loves how the part of town he's in "started getting more gentrified" like that somehow shouldn't be controversial and is a good thing.
*.....because IT IS*
Towns grow or die.
San Antonio is a blue city in Texas (like every other big city in Texas). It's no wonder they don't share the Texas philosophy on limited government.
Is anyone surprised that a Bush's first rebuttal to someone disagreeing with him is to call them loaded names and threaten to sanction them?
Stand your ground!
Let's get this guy some cannons
If George P Bush calls you “dishonorable”, you’re doing GREAT!!
I've been to the Alamo site, and all around it is the most touristy-trap garbage I have ever seen packed in around it. I was appalled. It really diminishes, in my mind at least, how much the state supposedly cherishes this site (that isn't even the real site) of this historical icon. Which is why I don't think they have a legitimate claim to use imminent domain against a business owner like Vince.
It is the real site. Nobody "moved the Alamo". The compound was always adjacenct to San Antonio downtown...now a part of it as downtown spread after 1900. The chapel is the iconic building, but all the area around it was the improvised fort and the chapel was a roofless shell in 1836 filled with a dirt ramp to hold cannon.
The Alamo Foundation though doesn't want to recreate missing buildings and proper walls and dirt grounds, they want to build new, modern buildings they own for their preferred management companies to charge time and money to.
Maybe this is a stupid question but what the fuck does civil rights have to do with the Alamo?
My thought as well. Seems like a boondoggle at best.
Rewrite of history....
Not sure why he has gotten an independent appraisal of his own for the business and property to produce and share justifying his asking price. Also not sure why they can't produce a plan that incorporates his tavern either into the new development or builds around it
They want him to give up his dream, so they can open up a gift shop.
How ironic that that a site that is dedicated to the Alamo. Where a group of men defied Mexico and fought for their freedom. Is now using eminent domain to take a private business.
"Texas is Small government."
No city is "small" government.
Not even Texan ones
Why not build around him and make him a feature of the museum? If they increase his traffic, they can ask for a portion of those profits.
They actually plan to remove his bar in order to expand pedestrian public right of way. It actually makes sense if you look at where his bar is located, and how they plan to improve pedestrian access
Jesus Christ why the hell does the ALAMO need a damn civil rights exhibit? CAN NOT EVERYTHING BE RACISM ALL THE TIME EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE?! I'm losing my ability to even.
I'd love to never see a single "civil rights" museum anywhere.
It just creates division and further fosters hate.
Godspeed and Blessings for this American Citizen...the Government using threats, is nothing less than bullying in the very worst and disgusting way imaginable...may these evil thieves be judged PROPERLY, and they will be
This guy doesn't stand a chance. Which is infuriating.
Liz has a great narration voice
My wife’s Great-GrandfatherX3 operated a tavern in DT San Antonio in the 1800s. It’s still there (new owner lol), so we’re going to back Mr. Cantu in this fight.
I hope he gets his price!
Why does The Alamo want a civil rights exhibit?
Pay the man what he wants.... that is the honorable thing to do. The irony of this is the amount of money politicians are willingly sending to the Ukraine.
This bar owner is not offering to "clean their money" 😂.
Who the hell does this government think they are?
I'd rather have a beer and Remember... I'll be down there this weekend Vince.
Fuck it... I have been to the Alamo; I would love to make this tavern part of the Museum.
I need to go to this place soon.
"Yes, it's theft, but it's for a good cause!"
Seven words minimum to trigger the Alamo. -I mean, the *algo.*
Keep up the fight!
Case by case basis. I would support the use of imminent domain in this instance.
Great work ReasonTV! Scooby snacks for you.
Since when does a government agency start acting so stingy with the taxpayers money?
If Bush 3.0 wants any kind of political future, he needs to settle this the right way.
The state stepped in so they could make him sell. Dirty politics.
Terrifying...
No land grabs, that’s what makes Us Americans. Hell No , At the man don’t wanna sell get the hell out of his life
Just say NUTS! What we said to Germans at Battle of the Bulge when surrounded! This is totally against our Constitutional Rights! No one can buy out some one. Eminent Domain is out dated by about 100 yrs. What can we do to help?
We tend to remember our founding fathers with with adoration and pride. Eminent domain was one of their most grievous mistakes. That and the general welfare clause.
Eminent domain existence is wrong.
Do you like electricity, natural gas, cheap gasoline? Do you like roads, waterlines, sanitary sewers, storm sewers and drainage? Eminent domain is a useful middle ground between a government that can take anything it wants, and a government that is powerless to do anything.
Pay the man his money!
There were taverns in San Antonio in 1842.
K.I.L.L.D.O.Z.E.R.
Im curious as to what civil rights had to do with the alamo
Non-profit AKA government bureaucracy
As a resident of Texas any time I hear the Bush name I cringe. Eminent Domain abuse is way too prevalent. Not surprised to hear a Bush behind the effort. Having a Bush impugning someone else's honor is ironic.
I don’t get the purpose of building a new museum. The Alamo property is pretty cool as is. And why have that whole AC building with the hermetic glass with the old swords and stuff.
What does a civil rights museum have to do with the Alamo
Why can’t they build a museum somewhere else?
Sue them and taken them for all they have.. including your $ losses due to their bad press on your buisness.
That's your problem. You're not in Texas. You're in San Antonio.
Property rights are fundamental for a free and prosperous society, eminent domain makes property rights mutt.
We become nothing more than tenants on the land of ol Lord and Lady government...
Very feudalistic.. eminent domain
Eminent domain is a middle ground between a government being able to take whatever it wants whenever, and a government that has no power to do anything. The government, especially within cities, needs to be able have the power to help citizens be able to enjoy nice things.
@@Bugpop
Government DOES not need to take private property.
Everything they provide can be provided by private enterprise, urbanites can have even nicer things!!! Go figure!!!
It is unTexan. Born and raised in SA.
2:03 man is he greedy. Greed usually ends with you losing to the establishment. Stupid regarding his point
they should have to buy a stake to get market price
Texas isn’t the Texas they taught you about anymore
Take the $3.5 million and have an awesome party!!
Lol, the irony of taking someones rights to build a civil rights museum.
Eminent domain is evil!
The bushes have no honor
I don't know. Guys like this turn down lucrative deals in favor of their nostalgia. For 2 million, he could probably find a place two blocks away, renovate it, set up again, this time with half a million in the bank to start. Eminent domain is crap, but I'm not taking up the cause of someone's nostalgia.
A civil rights center… how ironic
The whole idea of an Alamo museum is stupid. We have the internet.
Duck Bush, it’s this mans land keep it bro
😂😂😂 yeah you aint getting that. Wait till hes 70 and he will sell it. Pretty much what he said.
I could understand taking it to rebuild the wall but to build a civil rights exhibit (especially these days and from a Bush) and theater is just messed up
Bush aint no Texan.
Makes sense it is a Bush
Civil rights museum? 😏
Take the guys building. The offer is well over the market rate. Have fun fighting kelo. What a clown
2.8 million in 10 years?
L😂L
Pardon me if I doubt the "independence" of that market value.
He should hire a Mexican spokeswoman. City would back off immediately