City of San Antonio serves Moses Rose’s owner paperwork to condemn business on his birthday

The owner of Moses Rose’s Hideout, the downtown bar in the middle of an eminent domain fight with the city, is having a shitty birthday.

In the three-minute video posted Wednesday to both Twitter and TikTok, tavern owner Vince Cantu announced that he’d been served paperwork to appear at a hearing about his building being condemned.

“So, it’s my birthday today, but I don’t really feel like celebrating,” Cantu says in the clip. “It’s kind of a bittersweet birthday. On my birthday, I got served.”

Cantu then holds up a citation ordering him to appear at Bexar County Probate Court 2 for a Monday, June 5, hearing.

The city, the Alamo Trust  and the Texas General Land Office filed paperwork on May 10 to condemn — or forcibly confiscate — the bar located at 516 E Houston St. to make way for the $400 million Alamo Visitor Center and Museum.

State and local entities said they had no choice but to condemn Moses Rose’s after Cantu failed to accept a $5.26 million offer for the property and his business operations. That offer amounts to nearly three times the value of the property determined by an independent appraisal company.

The city first filed paperwork to move forward with eminent domain proceedings against Moses Rose’s back on Jan. 26 — two years after first approaching Cantu about buying his property, according to paperwork from the Alamo Trust.

“All these people that are building the museum, all these people that are saying, ‘We’re doing this for the Alamo,’ none of them are Texan,” Cantu says during his video rant. “None of them are defenders, and none of them even know what they’re doing or what this is all about.”

In the clip, Cantu also says he feels like he’s “being guided into a mission of destiny” in his fight against the city.

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This article appears in May 17-30, 2023.