Troubled bars' owner a homicide victim

Although neighbors described a recent Avondale homicide victim as pleasant and well-liked, they said his personality contrasted with the reputation of the bars he ran.

News reports indicate that Rivera had problems with police at both the Oxford Hotel, which he bought in 1987 and operated as El Conquistador for several years, and the Wilmington club he was running at the time of his death, where two bar fights turned fatal.

In a 1989 interview with The Inquirer, Rivera, also known as "Isaac," said he wanted to provide a social venue for Hispanics in Chester County at the Oxford Hotel. "There was no entertainment for the Hispanics," he said. "I wanted to do something, to give them someplace to go."

Rivera said he came to the United States from Puerto Rico at the age of 16, worked for years as a vegetable picker, and understood the needs of the growing Hispanic population.  He rented the hotel's 35 rooms to Hispanics and opened a large back room with a bar and dance floor on Fridays and Saturdays, attracting large crowds from Lancaster to Wilmington.

The activity also attracted police, who said they received numerous complaints about fights spilling into the streets. Rivera said a prejudiced community was against him from the start, and after a raid by the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, he sold the hotel, eventually opening the cafe in Wilmington.

Rivera ran into trouble with authorities again.

According to articles in the News Journal, a Newark, De., man died in July 2007 after a bouncer at the bar fractured his skull during a brawl; a 22-year-old Wilmington man was stabbed with the shaft of a broken golf club outside the bar about six months earlier; and two men were arrested in the robbery of some patrons after they left the bar in August 2004. In 2003, a a 38-year-old man was critically injured when he was stabbed repeatedly in a bar fight, and several months later, a bar fight that ended up outside resulted in the death of a 28-year-old Kennett Square man.

Police said Rivera was fatally shot after he returned home to Avondale from the Wilmington cafe, and they are eager to talk to anyone who might have information that would help solve this crime. For more details on the murder, see http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20110913_Police_probe_Avondale_man_s_shooting_death.html

A reward is being offered by Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers. Anyone with information that leads to an arrest should call 1-800-4PA-TIPS and may remain anonymous,