SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Bar Patrons Alarmed by City Action

In this former country crossroads community, with a history firmly rooted in cowboys and cattle ranching, modern versions of Western saloons are being swallowed up by a city intent on sprucing up its image.

The latest victim of this rush toward respectability may be the 1923-vintage San Juan Saloon, long a fixture here and a favorite watering hole for many local residents.

Last month, the City Council authorized City Manager Stephen B. Julian to begin negotiations to buy the saloon, the city’s oldest bar, continually operated since 1932, about nine years after the building was constructed.

Customers of the San Juan Saloon were alarmed at the news of the city’s interest in that building.

“They’re pushing us right out of town,” said lifetime city resident Joe Baltierra, 43. “I’m not hard core against progress, but they should be more selective with what they want to do.”

Saloon owner Donna Timney, a blonde who packs a tough, no-nonsense attitude into her 4-foot, 6-inch frame, said she wouldn’t leave without a fight.

“The city can’t close this bar down,” said Timney, 42, who for five years has run the business under a $3,000-per-month sublease with the building’s owner, Ken Machem.

“I put my guts into this place,” she said. “Everything I’ve worked for has gone in here. It’s been a bar for too long. People in this town remember coming in here when they were kids. People from all over Orange County know about it.”

When the saloon first opened, Rancho Mission Viejo was a large cattle ranch with loads of cowboys who came into town to relax after a hot, dusty day of work.

“They used to hang their saddles on hooks from the ceiling,” Timney said. She has retained the cowboy flavor with rustic wall decorations and a well-worn wooden table in a corner of the bar.

Legend has it that four apartments above the bar once served as a brothel, Timney said. The rooms are now rented on a weekly basis.

There also are tales of a ghost wandering its wooden floors and stucco walls, opening cash-register drawers after hours when the bartender is cleaning up, and faint footsteps that Timney has heard while doing bookkeeping at 3:30 a.m.

Julian said the city’s “goal is to get someone to spend money on it and fix it up. I don’t want people to think we are putting the saloon out of business, but we need a good, solid restaurant in this town.”

Julian said he is talking to the operator of a family-style restaurant to take over the saloon building once its purchase is final. He would not name the restaurant.

“Now that the theater is closer to fruition, we want to encourage families to come out here,” he added, referring to a five-screen theater across the street from the saloon.

Residents of the Los Rios Street Historic District, a cluster of 18th- and 19th-Century homes just opposite the train station, have complained about loud, live music emanating from the saloon, Julian said.

Timney said she has had an increasing problem with nighttime barroom brawls. Three weeks ago, a group of men turned away for having no identification hurled bricks from the theater site through three glass windows, causing several hundred dollars damage, Timney said.

The saloon sits across from the 1895 Capistrano Depot, which the city bought two years ago for $910,000 from owners facing potential bankruptcy. This week, the council is expected to finalize a seven-year lease with a new operator for the restaurant and bar occupying the red-brick, domed train station.

A third bar in town, Swallows Inn, also is in a city-owned building. The building was bought in 1987, along with several other businesses fronting Camino Capistrano as a redevelopment district.

Plans for the area call for a 125-room hotel, restaurants and retail shops. City officials would not comment on what will become of the Swallows Inn or other businesses the redevelopment agency owns on that block.