Texas protesters defied Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ‘s executive order to close bars by organizing a mostly unmasked rally at a club near Houston over the weekend.
Protesters gathered at the Chuters Dance Hall & Saloon in Pasadena, Texas, Sunday night for a “Texas Bars Fight Back Rally” after nightclubs were ordered to close amid the state’s coronavirus outbreak, The Houston Chronicle reported.
The dance floor was reportedly packed with customers, most without masks, dancing with a live band and drinking alcohol, in violation of various state coronavirus restrictions.
Ballroom owners Chris and Helen Bergeron had staged a peaceful protest at the Texas Capitol, pressing for the reopening of the bars in late June. Chris Bergeron said that bar owners like him “need to be able to survive and go back to work,” according to the Chronicle.
“It doesn’t make any sense and your discrimination is all it is,” Chris Bergeron he told MySanAntonio.com. “I’m not sure why they’re bothering us … I don’t know what [the governor’s] The reasons are, but it’s wrong. It is completely wrong. It is totally against our constitutional law. “
Abbott paused at the reopening of the state and closed the bars in late June after Texas had quickly become a hot spot in the US for COVID-19.
The governor has said he regrets not having closed the bars before, saying they have been identified as places where major broadcasts occurred, according to the Chronicle.
Other bar owners have turned to the legal system to combat the shutdown, and 22 of them sued the governor for the restriction and said it “unconstitutionally overlooks the state legislature.” The Washington Post reported.
Texas is struggling to reign in the number of coronavirus cases, reaching its biggest single-day rise for new cases on Tuesday with 10,926 cases of COVID-19, according to Data from the New York Times. Overall, the state has documented 275,058 cases and 3,322 deaths, according to data from the Texas Department of Health Services.
A Houston Chronicle analysis found that more than 100,000 of the Texas cases were identified in the past two weeks.
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