Police Say Cafe Arson Intended to Bully Pair : La Colonia: The owners offered to let officers use a nearby building for a station. The deal is still on.

Arsonists set fire early Thursday to La Paloma cafe in Oxnard’s La Colonia district, in what police called an attempt to bully the restaurant’s owners out of donating an adjacent building for use as a police station.

In response, police said they will open the storefront station within a week, two months ahead of schedule, at the rear of the cafe in the 300 block of Cooper Road.

“This is a slap in the face to everybody in Oxnard,” said police spokesman David Keith. “It’s almost as if the disruptive element in La Colonia has thrown down the gauntlet.”

The 4 a.m. fire fractured windows and slightly damaged the interior of the one-room cafe, which has been owned and operated by Fulgencio and Consuelo Camberos for the past 13 years.

The couple, helped by friends and supporters, spent Thursday repairing the damage and scrubbing smoke-blackened walls and ceilings.

They said they do not intend to revoke their offer, accepted by the City Council on Tuesday, of rent-free space for a storefront station in a vacant building they own.

“We’ve already started; we will continue to go forward,” said Fulgencio Camberos, who hoped to reopen the restaurant today. “These guys (the arsonists) don’t like to see anything good in La Colonia.”

But La Colonia activists Thursday called for immediate protection for the Camberoses and other merchants in the crime-choked barrio, characterized by police as the drug-dealing capital of Ventura County.

“What are they (the City Council) waiting for?” asked Carlos Aguilera, president of the La Colonia Neighborhood Council. “The city is now committed to that family and this community. If they can’t provide protection immediately, they ought to resign.”

In addition to the early opening of the storefront station, Keith said extra patrols have been assigned indefinitely to La Colonia. Police are seeking the aid of anyone who can help identify the arsonists.

The Oxnard City Council on Tuesday agreed to have two officers and perhaps a commander work full time out of the storefront police station in La Colonia.

The idea of community-based policing is to have residents and officers work together to decide the best ways of fighting crime in the city’s toughest neighborhoods.

Neighborhoods don’t get much tougher than the three-square-block area around Cooper Road and Hayes Avenue, where police last year arrested 416 suspected drug peddlers and users. Those arrests accounted for more than 20% of the drug busts made citywide.

Council members on Thursday said they were outraged by the attack and vowed to do as much as possible to protect the family.

“I think we owe it to them, and I think they are going to get protection,” said Councilman Michael Plisky. “It’s just unfortunate that we have scum that commit these types of crimes.”

Councilman Manny Lopez visited the family at the cafe Thursday morning. He compared the attempt at intimidation to threats against witnesses in a trial.

“It’s our turn to step forward,” Lopez said. “They should not be rewarded for their civic participation by being burned out of their building.”

The fire did most of its damage in the corner where it was started.

The arsonists broke a window over the front door, poured gasoline inside and set it afire. The blaze, which caused an estimated $5,000 damage, ate along the ceiling and spread to the walls before it was extinguished by firefighters.

On Thursday, the Camberoses used soap, water and ammonia to cut through the heavy layer of soot that turned the restaurant’s walls from white to gray. City permits were singed, as was a poster that said: “Menudo, Breakfast of Champions.”

As news of the fire spread, longtime customers dropped by to lend their support.

“The beans burned, that’s all,” Fulgencio Camberos joked with well-wishers.

A neighboring business owner dropped in to see if she could help.

“We have to stay strong,” Aguilera told her, taking a break from scrubbing the ceiling.

“If we give up, we lose it,” the merchant agreed.

Even Oxnard Housing Director Sal Gonzalez dropped by. Gonzalez was responsible for recruiting the Camberoses into offering their building to the Police Department.

“I think that someone has made a pretty persuasive argument for opening a police station in the area,” Gonzalez said of the attack. “I think the family did well. I think they are pretty courageous.”