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August 31, 2007

City won't close El Tiburon after fatal shooting

Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski
Club owner Oscar Vaverde, left, and his lawyer, Robert Goldberg, meet with the Providence Board of Licenses today.

PROVIDENCE -- The city will not shut down El Tiburon, the Valley Street restaurant and bar where a leader in the Latin Kings gang was shot and killed last weekend.

But the bar must hire a detail of two police officers to oversee the premises on every night it is open for the immediate future, according to a decision rendered by the city’s Board of Licenses today.

The bar has been closed all week, following the shooting early Saturday of Vidal “Lucky” Rodriguez, 33, a leader in the Almighty Latin Kings Nation street gang. Rodriguez, who had stepped out of the bar to have a cigarette, was shot while standing on the sidewalk outside El Tiburon just before 1 a.m.

The police had requested that the city’s Board of Licenses hold a hearing to consider revoking the bar’s license.

Police have not made any arrests, and have not determined whether the killing was gang related.

Today, Oscar Valverde, and his son, Steven, met with a reporter at a table inside the bar at 370 Valley St. to dispute the Police Department’s characterization of his bar as a hangout for members of the Latin Kings.

The Valverdes said that Rodriguez had been in the bar for only “10 to 15 minutes,” before he was killed. They said that he used to drop in about once a month, and they did not know that he was member of a notorious street gang.

-- Journal staff writer Daniel Barbarisi

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 5:42 PM | Permalink

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