Judge Upholds City’s Action on Aztec Brewery

In a defeat for a community group seeking to save the defunct Aztec Brewery in Barrio Logan, a Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that the City Council was within its rights when it approved a political compromise that preserved historic artworks inside the brewery but not the brewery buildings themselves.

Judge James A. Malkus, describing the venerable artworks depicting Mayan and Aztec life to fine “wine” and the buildings to “the chalice in which (the wine) is held,” said the City Council “in this case decided not to preserve the chalice.”

The attorney representing the Harborview Community Council, the group which filed the lawsuit against the city in July, said the decision will probably be appealed.

“Our concern is that the city will issue a demolition permit” before environmental and preservation studies being done on the brewery are completed, said Denise Moreno Ducheny, the lawyer for the Harborview Community Council.

But Deputy City Atty. Deborah Berger told reporters after the hearing that the city has no intention of allowing the buildings to be demolished until the environmental reports are final, a process she said could take another 60 to 90 days.

Long Forgotten

Controversy about the brewery’s future erupted last March, when it became known that a group of barrio artists had discovered a series of striking murals and colorful paintings created in the ‘30s but which had long been forgotten and ignored inside the brewery’s rathskeller. The man who painted the pictures and the murals was identified as the late Spanish painter Jose Moya del Pino.

Although the barrio artists wanted to save both the paintings and the buildings, erected in 1911 and 1915, this led to a problem because the buildings were slated to be destroyed to make room for a warehouse, the first project in a new enterprise zone approved for the area by the city.

The divisions extended to the Latino community of Barrio Logan. Although there was general agreement about preserving the artworks, there was a difference of opinion among groups about whether the buildings, at 2301 Main St., should also be saved or allowed to be demolished because of jobs the new warehouse would supposedly bring into the area.

The San Diego Historical Site Board went back and forth on the issue but eventually decided, over the objections of the buildings’ owner, Northern Automotive Corp., that both the brewery and its contents should be preserved and granted them historical status, making it much more difficult for the developers to go ahead with their warehouse.

One of Few Still Standing

But the City Council in June overturned the board’s recommendation, and voted instead to preserve the artwork but not the brewery buildings, which had been designed by Charles and Edward Quayle and originally served as the Savage Tire Co. The brick buildings make up one of the few factories from that era still standing in San Diego.

Then in July, the Harborview Community Council, working with the Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO), charged that the city, in its haste to get the area’s redevelopment off the ground and recover the art, had failed to enforce municipal regulations requiring environmental impact reviews of the artwork removal and the buildings’ demolition before either took place. It filed a lawsuit against the city, the buildings’ owner and the developer, Ramser Development Co. of Los Angeles.

Malkus issued a preliminary order requiring the safe preservation of the artwork and said he would rule later on whether the City Council abused its discretion, as the lawsuit alleged. On Thursday, however, Malkus ruled that the City Council had acted legally.

The issue, however, is far from dead, according to Ducheny. Both the Harborview Community Council and SOHO intend to dispute findings in a draft environmental impact report on the brewery and artwork prepared by the city planning department. The final day to receive comments about the report is Tuesday.

A Separate Study

On another front, Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) is pressing for a separate study that would entail an analysis of the historic quality of the brewery and ways to preserve it, as well looking at how the proposed warehouse would affect the surrounding neighborhood, according to an official from his office.

The federal government would become involved through the National Historic Preservation Act because the brewery is in the enterprise zone, which is being funded with federal money, according to the official.

The artwork is now in storage, although the Harborview Community Council has alleged in its lawsuit that the buildings’ owner allowed some of it to be vandalized by not keeping the old brewery properly secured. Malkus, though, refused to rule on that issue.

Under the compromise worked out by the City Council, the artwork is supposed to be turned over free by Northern Automotive and housed for public viewing in the offices of Chuey’s, the well-known Mexican restaurant at Main and Crosby streets.