It appears that government-imposed restrictions on travel, business, and social contact don’t become more palatable with age. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to simmer, the one competency that officials have consistently displayed is in tightening the screws, using the licenses and permissions they require as enforcement tools. For people tired of being bossed around, the obvious response is to carry on without the government’s imprimatur—and they’re doing so in droves. It’s an attitude likely to live on long after the crisis has passed.
“Our businesses are doomed,” Chris Polone, co-owner of a Fort Worth bar that was one of more than 800 such establishments to open in defiance of Texas closure orders, said at the end of July. “We have nothing to lose. We can either fight this thing, Or we can starve ourselves out.”
As apocalyptic as that sounds, it’s a reasonable statement when the review site Yelp reports that 55 percent of all businesses shut during the pandemic are believed to have closed their doors forever. For many entrepreneurs, breaking the rules may be the only way to survive.
That the rebellion among Texas taverns is alive and well is obvious from a desperate-sounding open letter issued last week by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC). “Recently we have spoken with business owners who tell us they don’t intend to follow the orders,” wrote A. Bentley Nettles, the commission’s executive director. “When a business tells TABC it doesn’t intend to follow these orders, you leave the agency with no option but to revoke your license and shut you down.”…