Police officers routinely staged outside Bobby Salazar\u2019s Taqueria in Fresno\u2019s Tower District to serve as a crime deterrent on the popular bar\u2019s busy nights.<\/p>\n
But no cops were on the clock at Bobby Salazar\u2019s on New Year\u2019s Eve \u2014 when two people were hurt in a stabbing outside the bar \u2014 because Bobby Salazar\u2019s no longer contracts with city police.<\/p>\n
Two people were injured in a stabbing outside the Olive Avenue bar and restaurant<\/a> about 1 a.m. New Year\u2019s Day in a fight that started inside before spilling outside, according to police. Neither victim spoke with police.<\/p>\n Salazar did not return requests for comment from The Bee. The last time his Tower District location paid for officers to be on site was in September 2023, according to records.<\/p>\n Fresno Police Department offers contract law enforcement to local business owners who want to pay for officers on the premises. The officers are in uniform and commonly use a police cruiser, which comes with an extra charge.<\/p>\n Fresno police confirmed through Lt. Larry Bowlan the last contract was for 10 nights in September 2023 for $6,993.20. That paid for two officers and a patrol car from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. every Friday and Saturday that month, according to the contract signed the previous month.<\/p>\n Salazar\u2019s restaurant has remained eligible to request the policing despite his arrest in September of this year, police said. He faces arson and fraud charges after a fire<\/a> at another restaurant location from April 2024 that investigators allege was set by a biker-gang member paid to do so by Salazar.<\/p>\n The 63-year-old has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n The officers hired under contract policing work on a volunteer basis during hours they would normally be off the clock. They also only do police work, the contract notes, and don\u2019t act as bouncers, security guards or other business employees, according to police.<\/p>\n Contract policing is fairly common in Fresno, where officers can be seen under contract outside a Walmart or at an event at the Fresno Fairgrounds, to name a few examples.<\/p>\n Bobby Salazars Contract-Redacted <\/a> by tmiller <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police officers routinely staged outside Bobby Salazar\u2019s Taqueria in Fresno\u2019s Tower District to serve as a crime deterrent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[63787,63786,112,114,113,1057,43667,24347,1100],"class_list":["post-121271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-bobby-salazars","tag-bobby-salazars-taqueria","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-police-department","tag-new-years-eve","tag-police-cruiser","tag-police-officers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}