Texas

TexasTowelie

(111,972 posts) Sat May 16, 2020, 08:14 AM May 2020

Texas bar owners say they're going broke and are desperate for reopening plan

Emil Bragdon's bars have been shut down for almost two months, and he's running out of money. And lately, he's been asking himself: What would Shelley Luther do?

Bragdon said he and other bar owners across Texas that he talks to are seriously contemplating opening up illegally to get the governor’s attention.

After all, it worked for hair salons, Bragdon reasons, referring to Luther, the Dallas businesswoman who gained national attention for illegally reopening her salon and being sentenced to jail after refusing to apologize. Gov. Greg Abbott ultimately allowed salons to reopen May 8 — more than a week ahead of his initial schedule — after Luther’s ruckus and pressure from within his own party.

“This one lady did it, and she got a lot of attention and now all the salons are open,” Bragdon said. “Is that something we have to do? Because if we have to do that, we'll do it.”

Read more: https://www.reporternews.com/story/news/2020/05/14/texas-bar-owners-say-theyre-going-broke-desperate-reopening-plan/5190756002/
(Abilene Reporter-News)

6 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Texas bar owners say they're going broke and are desperate for reopening plan (Original Post) TexasTowelie May 2020 OP

Texas is in for a world of hurt. Stay safe, TexasTowelie. Squinch May 2020 #1

big spike in cases last two days in Texas Blues Heron May 2020 #2

She got a lot of attention because there was a PR group orchestrating it. tanyev May 2020 #3

They should vote for democrats then duforsure May 2020 #4

Yup. The Voting For Democrats has sure worked for us here in New Mexico! abqtommy May 2020 #5

My BF is a bar owner in WA Wawannabe May 2020 #6

Squinch

(50,921 posts)

1. Texas is in for a world of hurt. Stay safe, TexasTowelie.

Reply to TexasTowelie (Original post)

Sat May 16, 2020, 08:16 AM

May 2020

Blues Heron

(5,926 posts)

2. big spike in cases last two days in Texas

Reply to TexasTowelie (Original post)

Sat May 16, 2020, 08:30 AM

May 2020

these fucking spreaders are a huge problem.

tanyev

(42,523 posts)

3. She got a lot of attention because there was a PR group orchestrating it.

Reply to TexasTowelie (Original post)

Sat May 16, 2020, 08:43 AM

May 2020

Arrested Dallas Hairdresser’s GoFundMe Launched Before She Even Reopened

The Dallas salon has become pivotal in the stay-at-home-order debates after its owner, Shelley Luther, was arrested on Tuesday and sentenced to seven days in jail on a contempt of court charge. That stemmed from her refusal to apologize and close down her store until the second phase of Governor Greg Abbott’s public safety plan, which was scheduled to go into effect on May 18 so long as infections didn’t continued to spike. Abbott himself declared the punishment for defying his own order unjust, and retroactively barred local officials from imposing jail time for violating it. He then went on to allow hair salons to reopen ten days earlier than he’d previously announced, on May 8. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, meanwhile, volunteered as tribute to serve the time himself, provided he could do so from his own house (Texas jails and prisons are pretty unsafe right now). Then Cruz flew in for a haircut—and Luther landed a big payday, raising more than $500,000 from a GoFundMe campaign that called her “an American hero.”

If all of this feels like a particularly effective PR stunt, well, that certainly seems accurate: the GoFundMe campaign—run by a group calling themselves “Woke Patriots”—was created on April 23, one day before Luther reopened her salon. “We researched her and her cause,” campaign organizer Rick Hire wrote on the page, “and decided that we would approach her and offer to support her as our first patriot cause. She accepted our offer.”

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/dallas-salon-arrest-gofundme/

duforsure

(11,885 posts)

4. They should vote for democrats then

Reply to TexasTowelie (Original post)

Sat May 16, 2020, 09:36 AM

May 2020

Under Obama or under Hillary this would have not happened. Opening up without adequate testing and monitoring without masking everyone will just make everything much worse both health wise, and for the economy. Whining to open to knowingly going to fail is absurd, and bad business. The facts and studies don't lie, but trump and the Republicans do.

abqtommy

(14,118 posts)

5. Yup. The Voting For Democrats has sure worked for us here in New Mexico!

Reply to duforsure (Reply #4)

Sat May 16, 2020, 09:46 AM

May 2020

Wawannabe

(5,634 posts)

6. My BF is a bar owner in WA

Reply to TexasTowelie (Original post)

Sat May 16, 2020, 01:26 PM

May 2020

This is something we discuss every other day or so. 8 weeks with no revenue and all kinds of bills still due - WHILE there are hundreds of businesses allowed to make revenue.

In WA state the gov shut down bars more effectively than restaurants and these businesses will be the last to reopen.

I can’t tell you how many ways he is screwed by this. There was absolutely NO warning of impending order like others got.

We CAN open up with smart social distancing and we WILL 86 anybody that doesn't want to play by the new bar rules. We will enforce and still be respected for it by the vast majority of customers.

He needs an income. But bottom line is that we can’t risk his business/liquor license (future income) to reopen.

Reply to this discussion