Senor Tequila building deserved a better fate

Poor Senor Tequila.

He must be rolling in his grave in the cemetery of bygone restaurants every time his name is mentioned in the context of the building at 2219 W. Jefferson St.

“We’d like to have Senor Tequila declared a public nuisance,” City Manager James Capparelli told the City Council this week as he gave a brief progress report on the efforts to obliterate whatever memory remains of the restaurant known as a place to go for super-sized beverages, and I don’t mean Diet Coke.

Many people, including myself one night, had enjoyed the hospitality of Senor Tequila when he was around.

Now he is branded a public nuisance.

The city wants the building torn down.

The current owner, Harish Bhatt, is not in the restaurant business. He owns the Basinger’s Pharmacy across the street. Bhatt keeps saying the Senor Tequila building will be torn down “very soon.”

“Very soon,” however, is hard to define.

The city this week was waiting on a copy of the title for the Senor Tequila building before proceeding in court on the nuisance complaint aimed at making “very soon” arrive eventually.

The city doesn’t have to go to court to make the building disappear.

“If they want to demolish it themselves, they can do that,” said City Attorney Sabrina Spano.

The city would drop its complaint, and Senor Tequila will become a mixed memory as the festive yellow-and-green building disappears to be replaced, if Bhatt can proceed as he says he intends, by a bigger and better Basinger’s Pharmacy.

The contribution made to the city by Senor Tequila, as unappreciated as it may be now, will not go away entirely.

The future Basinger’s as it is planned will include a liquor department.

Let me suggest here that it be called the Senor Tequila Memorial Liquor Department and that its shelves be yellow and green as a tribute to the controversy at 2219 W. Jefferson St. that has been brewing, believe it or not, for four years. Perhaps even photos of Senor Tequila from its better days can decorate the walls of the new liquor department.

Or, maybe not.

Basinger’s Pharmacy has been in Joliet for a long time — longer than Senor Tequila was here.

If Bhatt can build his better Basinger’s, I predict all will be forgiven at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

City officials will smile happily, and Bhatt will be acclaimed for his contribution to the revival of Jefferson Street, which, like Senor Tequila, has seen better days.

No one will call Senor Tequila a nuisance on that day, which Bhatt says should occur before the end of this year.

Senor Tequila then can rest in peace — assuming that’s what he wants.