Austin Landlords Demolish Piñata Store For SXSW, Call Mexican Tenants ‘Roaches'

[KamaAina]

http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/our-issues/austin-landlords-demolish-pinata-store-jumpolin-sxsw-party

The morning of February 12, 2015, Austinite Sergio Lejarazu was driving past his small business, a piñata and bouncy house store called Jumpolin at 1401 E. Cesar Chavez Street, on his way to drop his daughter off at school. That’s when he noticed something strange. Jumpolin wasn’t there anymore. He pulled over and quickly learned that his new landlords, Jordan French and Darius Fisher, two 2007 Vanderbilt University grads operating as F&F Real Estate Ventures, had demolished the building that Jumpolin occupied for eight years. The building still had all the inventory, cash registers and some personal property inside. Sergio and his wife Monica say they were given no prior warning and were up-to-date on their rent with a lease good until 2017.

Turns out, F&F were in such a hurry to demolish the building, because they had rented out an adjacent building that shared a lot with Jumpolin for a tech entrepreneur party scheduled to coincide with SXSW on the night of March 14. But F&F couldn’t get a variance from the city allowing them to skip the parking for their guests, so F&F’s agent ACI Design Build Contractors withdrew the request for a variance and applied, instead, for a permit to demolish the building in which Jumpolin was housed. I guess that’s one way to make room for a parking lot. No one from the city verified the building was vacant because, apparently, that’s not part of the protocol.

"Making sure if someone is living in a building or has property stored in the building seems to me much more between the owner of the building and the tenant,” City of Austin Historic Preservation Officer Steve Sadowsky told the Austin Chronicle. “And that's not the city's concern."

While F&F’s most ardent rationalization for demolishing the Lejarazus’ business is that the couple didn’t pay their February rent, the application to demolish was made on January 22 and approved on January 23. There’s also the little matter of a video of Sergio Lejarazu paying the February rent. The couple made the video, because F&F claimed they weren’t receiving the Lejarazus’ rent checks as soon as they acquired the property in October.

Why is Austin trying to outdo SF?!

[virgogal]

1. I read the entire article and there was NO mention of "roaches". Latina.com

obviously isn't a fan of truth in journalism.

[KamaAina]

2. Did you make it to page 2?

French defended the move in an interview with Austin Culture Map by referring to the Lejarazus as “roaches,” a word that has been levied against people of Mexican descent throughout this country’s history.

“Say you have a house that was infested by roaches,” French said. “You have to clean that up.”

[virgogal]

8. My apologies--I was not aware of Page 2.

[herding cats]

3. The article was a bit lacking in formatting

Here's a better one and the offending quote.

<>
“They had paid their rent in full; the ‘default’ was cured even though they were not in default,” Peters said. “The bottom line is, [the owners] have plans to build on that piece of property, and my clients’ contractual right to have possession of the premises just was getting in the way of that.”

French, however, said that he believes the piñata and party business was only a front for the real dealings of the store. He points to an arrest record in May 2014 that shows Sergio was arrested for buying two stolen bicycles from a police informant. It’s unclear whether he knew the bikes were stolen when he bought them; in any case Peters maintains that the arrest is completely irrelevant to this case.

“Probably their livelihood was selling helium and stolen bicycles,” French said. “They weren’t making a living selling piñatas; they were selling something else. I don’t want to speculate what that is.” However, he went on to suggest that it was likely “uncontrolled substances.” “That’s just my opinion, though,” French stated.

When asked why he would demolish the building with the inventory and property inside, he said, “You're assuming we knew something was inside. Sergio was not selling piñatas at the location — he had piñatas at a neighboring location — in the weeks leading up to the demo.”

French also pointed out that the situation is not over a residential lease. “The Lejarazus weren’t living there. This is a totally different ballgame. That building isn’t even conducive as a retail space to be selling piñatas,” he added.

But the Lejarazus have been running their business at the property for eight years, and another three years before that in a different location. They sold moonwalks that Sergio built himself and piñatas imported from Mexico as well as those that Monica hand-made in the store. “Customers would come in and say, ‘I want a piñata like that one, only can you change this or that,” she said. “Sometimes they would bring their children to see their piñatas being made.”

Peters filed a lawsuit on the Lejarazus behalf on Friday at 3 pm. “This type of situation with evictions happens in gentrification all over town,” Peters said. “But I’ve never seen a situation like this, where they just demolished someone’s building or house without due process of law. They were indecent about the whole thing; they lacked any sort of compassion or empathy in this.”

<>

“Say you have a house that was infested by roaches,” French described it. “You have to clean that up.”

http://austin.culturemap.com/news/city-life/02-15-15-east-austin-pinata-store-jumpolin-demolition-property-owner/

[cali]

4. sue the everloving shit out of the punk fucks.

[herding cats]

5. There's some good news of a sort in this story.

In their rush to tear down the store they hit a gas main, which is bad I realize, but it will cost the greedy owners extra money.

Also, they cancelled the SXSW event which was going to be held at the location, so that's even more money out of the new owners pockets. Add in the lawsuit and this is going to be one expensive move on the property owners part.

[hobbit709]

6. Better details here.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2015-03-13/jumpolin-and-gentrification-backlash/

http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2015-02-27/jumpolin-supporters-claim-a-victory/

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2015-02-27/gentrification-refugees/

[DonCoquixote]

7. It sure helps

that they are a company that literally makes " sock puppets" people who are paid to lie on Wikipedia. Lot like we have not seen a few things on DU that might be their handiwork.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. omg

[UTUSN]

10. Austin?!1 Really?!1 Liberal Austin?!1 Austintaceous?!1 Hollywood Austin?!1 CAN'T be!1 n/t

[Cal Carpenter]

11. Keep Austin weird

For fuck's sake