Friday, June 24, 2005

Taco Land article from the Express-News

sent to me by JCM:

So many great memories playing there... I'm speechless...
RIP Ram and let's us pray for the two victims to pull through... JCM


Vianna DavilaExpress-News Staff Writer
The owner of Taco Land, a landmark San Antonio night club once immortalized in song, was fatally shot at the bar around 1:21 this morning in an incident that sent two other people to the hospital in critical condition, police said.

Ramiro Albert Ayala, 72, was pronounced dead at 2:25 a.m., according to the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office. Ayala is listed as the bar's owner, the medical examiner said.
Details of the shooting were sketchy, but San Antonio Police Department Sgt. Matt Podwika said two men were inside the bar when words were exchanged and at least one of the men opened fire.

"We don't know exactly what was said between ( the victims) and the suspects," he said.
Ayala was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center with a wound to the left side of the chest. A 40-year-old woman who was shot in her abdomen, and a 54-year-old man shot in the side, were taken to University Hospital, according to Podwika.

It appears the two suspects fled in an unknown vehicle with the money in the bar's cash register, the sergeant said.

A Dec. 12, 2000, article in the San Antonio Express-News said Ayala opened his business, at 103 W. Grayson, in 1965, selling food to workers from the soda bottling plants that once operated in the area. He turned the business into a bar in 1969