Three weeks after being shut down by Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order, a music venue and restaurant in The Colony named Lava Cantina has reopened.
Thousands of bars in Texas were ordered to close abruptly on June 26 in an effort to slow the spread of the new coronavirus in Texas. Abbott’s order said that establishments that earn 51% or more of its revenue from alcohol sales would need to shutter indefinitely.
Ian Vaughn, owner and founder of Lava Cantina, believed his business was misclassified. And in fact, he kept Lava Cantina open after the June 26 mandate, until the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) ordered him to shut down. For weeks since then, Vaughn has contended that Lava Cantina didn’t earn more than half of its revenue from alcohol sales.
On Friday, July 17, he was able to prove that Lava Cantina makes 39% of its revenue from alcohol sales and 61% from food, he says. The trick was that he was allowed to lump live-music ticket sales in with food.
“I’ve never been against the shutdowns,” Vaughn says. “My problem has been, the governor picked one segment of one industry.” The topic has been a great point of discussion among bar owners in D-FW.
According to TABC Public Information Officer Chris Porter, several dozen bar owners in Texas have successfully proved that their businesses should be classified as restaurants and not bars. That change allows those businesses to reopen at 50% capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vaughn believes as many as 1,500 other bars are classified incorrectly, which has affected tens of thousands of food-industry workers who are now out of work. The problem, in Vaughn’s opinion, is the “gun sign”: Every restaurant-bar has a weapons warning sign outside the door, and it’s those signs that indicate if a business can remain open under Gov. Abbott’s order. A blue sign, for those with 51% or more in food sales, says customers can’t carry an unlicensed gun. A red sign, for those with 51% or more in alcohol sales, says no handguns are allowed.
Businesses with blue signs can remain open; those with red signs cannot.
“Gov. Abbott used a gun-control law instead of the already-defined alcohol law,” Vaughn says. Porter confirmed that the gun sign for Lava Cantina was changed from red to blue, therefore changing its status and allowing it to open immediately. Vaughn opened Lava Cantina Friday at 4 p.m., three hours after he got the news.
Lava Cantina will host a live concert Friday night, with social-distancing measures required. The business will be short staffed, he admits: Many of his staffers got other jobs after being out of work for three weeks.
Reactions to Abbott’s shut down have been varied among bar owners in North Texas. One group of bar owners filed a lawsuit against Gov. Abbott. One bar in Burleson hosted a protest. Still others, like Dallas’ Double Wide bar owner Kim Finch, are choosing simply to wait until Abbott’s order changes. But that doesn’t mean Finch is happy about it: “I’m kind of laughing because I’m trying not to be hysterically upset. It’s just unbelievable,” she told The Dallas Morning News three weeks ago.
Still others are choosing to sign a Texas Restaurant Association petition asking Abbott to redefine how it classifies bars in Texas.
Vaughn is one of the most vocal bar owners in North Texas who was able to change his business’ fate. Porter expects more businesses to contact their local TABC licensing office to update their records.
“What this does is it allows TABC to work with these businesses to update their sales figures, to assist them in showing a more accurate reflection of their operations,” Porter says.
Vaughn is optimistic.
“I certainly get the impression [TABC is] ready and willing to help businesses that are operating responsibly to get back open,” he says.
