Lawsuits

Taqueria El Balazo Owners Still In Hot Water Over Hiring of Illegals

El Balazo's Haight Street location.
El Balazo’s Haight Street location. Photo: via BCN/SF Appeal

Illegal immigrants are everywhere in the service industries — in a 2007 interview with Grub Street, Bruce Hill, chef-owner of Bix, Picco, and Zero Zero even called them the “backbone” of the restaurant industry, in response to a crackdown happening at that time under the Bush Administration. But restaurateurs are still prosecuted for harboring and hiring illegals. Case in point: The owners of Taqueria El Balazo, which has nine Bay Area locations, got raided back in 2008 and they’re now facing stiff sentencing for tax fraud, hiring illegals, and knowingly misusing employees’ social security numbers. As Bay City News reports, authorities found that owners Marino and Nicole Sandoval were employing 63 undocumented workers at that time, and after they were forced by the feds to fire them, they went ahead and rehired ten of them. The Sandovals are scheduled for sentencing on December 14. [BCN/Appeal]

Taqueria El Balazo Owners Still In Hot Water Over Hiring of Illegals