Bars across Tarrant County opened Saturday in protest of state COVID-19 rules
Four Tarrant County bars were among hundreds to open their doors against state rules Saturday night in protest of restrictions meant to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Chris Polone, owner of The Rail Club Live in Fort Worth and organizer of Saturday’s Freedom Fest, said the protest was a challenge to Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to close bars and a call for him to sit down with local bar owners and discuss regulations.
Abbott ordered bars across the state to reshutter their doors June 26 after confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus spiked across the state.
The move was an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, but bar owners said they did more Saturday to prevent the spread of the virus than most restaurants do on a daily basis.
The Rail Club Live and Eight Ball Billiard in Fort Worth, G Willikers Pub in Arlington and Burleson’s Cooter Brown’s welcomed patrons back into their bar rooms Saturday.
All four bars said the turnout and support was better than they expected.
Three of the bar owners said they have received death threats since publicly announcing they would reopen for the night. Polone said some of the death threats called him a “grandma killer.”
The owners said those death threats will be used in future lawsuits.
The Rail Club Live opened without making any sales of alcohol after its liquor license was suspended for 30 days on July 4, when the music venue defied state orders to host an Independence Day party.
Polone said the bar didn’t have any liquor bottles on display and it wasn’t making a dime off being open.
Representatives of all of the local participating bars told the Star-Telegram at various times throughout Saturday night that they hadn’t seen or heard from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission but were ready to face any consequences for reopening.
TABC spokesman Chris Porter said in an email Friday that the commission was aware of the bars that would illegally open on Saturday and it would be conducting its normal inspections. Businesses can face a 30-day suspension of their liquor licenses.
“TABC urges all businesses to follow the guidelines laid out by Gov. Abbott’s executive orders in order to maintain the safety of the business owners, their employees and customers,” Porter said.
“At this point that liquor license is worth less to us than what it was printed on,” Cooter Brown’s owner Tara Worley said. “It’s not doing us any good at this point. It’s just that pointless.”
Polone said the decision to close bars that make 51% or more of the revenue on alcohol and liquor sales but not restaurants that serve alcohol doesn’t make sense. The mass opening of bars, which he has dubbed Freedom Fest, is a protest of that decision more than a business move.
“You can’t drink here, but you can go to Chuck-E-Cheese and order a pizza and let your kids run wild and lick the ticket machine and order yourself a drink,” he jested.
Polone said at least 1,000 bars joined the protest movement across the state and opened up despite orders from the governor.
Rules for Freedom Fest
Any bar that wanted to officially join the protest had to sign a pledge that it would enforce masking and social-distancing policies, provide hand sanitizer throughout the building, check the temperatures of all patrons and limit capacity.
The bars were also asked to raise money for charities in their area.
Rail Club Live raised money for Brandy’s Play in the Shade; G Willickers raised money for Santa Cop in Grand Prairie and Blue Angels in Arlington, splitting proceeds between the charities 50/50; Cooter Brown’s for Heart for the Kids in Burleson; and Eight Ball Billiards charged a $5 cover that went to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.
All four bars in Tarrant County had contactless thermometers, an abundance of hand sanitizer, masking policies that appeared to be strictly enforced, capacity limits beyond what the state requires for restaurants, and required patrons to find a table and stay within a social-distancing space marked on the floor with tape.
Masks were only to be taken off when drinking or smoking.
Rail Club Live handed out a bottle of hand sanitizer to each of the 40 guests allowed in the 800-person music venue.
For all the bars, owners and managers said it was about more than owners getting a paycheck.
Vicky Collins, owner of Eight Ball Billiards, said it is also about being able to pay others for their work.
“It’s all trickle down,” she said. “I need to be making money to pay my bartenders and manager so they can buy food and pay rent and take care of their families, you know? And I have to have money coming in if I want to pay bands to come and play live music for us.”
Down Under, a band from Kilgore, volunteered their time Saturday and played for free at Eight Ball Billiards. Local band Trespassers also played for free at Cooter Brown’s
Collins said she has been trying to pay her employees as much as she can afford while the bar is closed, but her bartenders and manager are still suffering from a lack of regular income. One bartender is about to lose her home, Collins said.
“I got an small business loan, but after being shut down so long that loan money is gone,” Collins said. “I’ve tried to keep my employees paid, but I can’t do that much longer.”
Polone said it went even deeper than that, with the shutdown of live music bars that make 51% or more of their money from alcohol sales impacting the income of public relations employees, event bookers and musicians.
The desire to get employees back into the building was expressed by owners or managers at all four of the bars, but Polone said it’s important to realize that bar owners aren’t having an easy time during the shut down.
The owners are still expected to pay rent and other bar expenses along with their own personal expenses, like rent for apartments or home payments, and food.
Most of the Tarrant County bars were also taking extra steps beyond what they were required to by their pledge to Polone.
Where Eight Ball Billiards usually has one bartender on weeknights (which Collins said draw about the same crowd as she was allowing in her bar and makeshift patio Saturday), she had three on the clock. One of those bartenders was there for the sole purpose of sanitizing everything customers touched.
Tables, chairs, places at the bar and pool sticks were sanitized every time they were touched. Worley said she also had a couple of employees at Cooter Brown’s working Saturday night with the single job of sanitizing the bar.
Polone had antiviral mist, which he said was approved by the CDC for use against COVID-19, constantly spraying at Rail Club Live.
In all of the bars, the social-distancing standards enforced were stricter than those in many restaurants across the county.
The goal
Polone said the goal of Freedom Fest was to prove to the state that bars can operate with rules beyond what is being required of other businesses.
He said he believes the rules from the state are an act of inverse condemnation, where the government takes control of property and fails to pay fair market value for the property to the owner in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
He said the fact he cannot continue to offer things like guitar classes in the building, where he does not even offer the sale of alcohol, is proof of that.
He said his and other bars are suing the Texas and its counties and cities over the rules.
Worley said her goal is to force Abbott to sit down with local bar owners and discuss the best way to move forward without shutting bars down.
“I’d like for Gov. Abbott to sit down and address the bar industry and let us know why we’re not as worthy of earning a living and feeding our families,” Worley said. “And I need to know if there’s an end in sight.”
Sonia Fennell, manager of G Willickers, said she wants to show the state that bars are forming a united front on the issue.
“Usually we are all just competitors against one another,” she said. “Tonight we’re showing solidarity and community. We are all one here.”
Fennell said that, having worked at G Willickers for 21 years, it is her life.
“That’s why if it goes down, I’ll go down with it,” she said.
She also hopes the event will honor the owners, both of whom recently died.
Cindy Sweigert, manager of Cooter Brown’s, said this was a part of a fight for survival.
Collins echoed that and said that if she didn’t own the bar’s building, the business wouldn’t exist anymore. She added that she has been debating whether to stay open against state rules now or not.
If the liquor license is suspended for 30 days, it won’t make any difference, she said. That’s just time the bar would be closed anyway if it didn’t break the rules, and the financial cost of staying closed is great.
“Another month of this and I’m not sure we’ll be here anyway,” Collins said.