Funds to aid bars, eateries approved
Down on the far South Side, on Texas 16, past Palo Alto College, past Loop 410, is a friendly neighborhood bar that boasts the best homemade micheladas and nearly 3,000 followers on Facebook.
But the family-run Colt 45 is fighting to say alive in the face of the pandemic.
“It’s been a struggle just to keep the lights on,” bar manager Jaime Guerrero said.
There’s hope on the way.
Bexar County commissioners approved a $4 million grant program Tuesday for bars and restaurants hurt financially by the pandemic, offering $25,000 grants to the small businesses to help tide them over until they can get back on their feet.
And County Judge Nelson Wolff is working with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission to get still-closed bars open again this week.
A grant “definitely ought to help,” Guerrero said.
In a busy meeting Tuesday, commissioners also
passed a $385,000 allocation to create a new civil rights unit in the district attorney's office to handle law enforcement use-of-force cases resulting in death or injury.
Community advocates called it a positive move but said it's not enough and urged the county to hire at least two victim advocates for the new unit.
“We have a chance here to get ahead of this and to create something that has not been done,” said Pharaoh Clark, a leader in the Black Lives Matter movement.
The county has the opportunity to establish approaches other communities will want to emulate, Clark said.
Small business relief
The business grants, to be administered by the nonprofit LiftFund and supported with federal dollars from the Coronavirus Relief Fund, will provide up to $25,000 for bars and restaurants with 60 or fewer employees and less than $5 million in annual income.
Bar manager Guerrero is hopeful the program will allow his family to keep the business open. The bar, which has been closed for four months, is on the same property as the Colt 45 Baseball Field, which has hosted games since 1963, providing countless memories and a recreational outlet, as well as an income source for about 10 employees.
Guerrero's daughter purchased the complex about five years ago from a family that ran it for four generations.
Applications for the grants will be accepted beginning at 10 a.m. on Monday, and close at 5 p.m. on Nov. 2. Grants will be awarded by Nov. 30. For more information, go to bexarcountystrong.org or call 210-335-1777.
More than 85 percent of bars have reopened as restaurants by investing in food service under TABC guidelines. But commissioners said they're particularly concerned about some 400 bars that didn't have financial capability to meet the state's definition as a restaurant.
Colt 45 couldn't afford to serve food on its own, Guerrero said. But it obtained a food and beverage license from the TABC this
week and is looking to partner with a food truck operator.
“It's just expensive to put a commercial kitchen in there. It was never part of our business plan,” he said. “We've tried to follow all the rules and regulations, and it's been aggravating because it's so confusing, you know, everything changes so much nowadays. It's hard to keep up with everything.”
Guerrero envisions teaming up with a mobile food vendor who can help keep his door open, serving hot dogs, nachos, hamburgers and other ballpark-friendly foods. And a cold beer.
“That way, we can meet the requirements and continue to play baseball as we have for 57 years,” Guerrero said.
Bar owners who opt to reopen will be required to comply with standards on spacing of tables, ventilation and face coverings. Wolff said only about 10 bars have contacted the county to indicate they intend to reopen.
County officials noted the Texas Restaurant Association estimates up to 35 percent of restaurants will not reopen in the long term.
The grant program is coming too late for Stacy Cavazos, sole
proprietor of Stacy's Sports Bar on the near North Side.
After 21 years, she's looking for another way to make a living.
“There's a lot of bars that are waiting it out,” she said, “but there's people who are like, ‘Man, we don't know what we're going to do. We're going to have to get regular jobs.' I said, ‘Yeah.'”
Cavazos, a single mom with three grown children, hopes to hone her managerial skills, maybe do inventory and payroll for another business. She said she can tend bar, manage and lead, and is good with math.
After years of restocking beer and liquor, and lugging around full 32-gallon garbage bins, with help from a staff of up to 10 bartenders and waitresses, she said running a bar has become too fraught with bureaucracy in the pandemic, including fines for owners whose patrons don't wear a mask — a violation she said is hard to control.
Her business has been closed since June, Cavazos said, and she couldn't afford to invest thousands of dollars on a kitchen in her 8,000-square-foot leased space, which features 19 pool tables, dart machines and about 20 TV screens.
Cavazos caught COVID-19 in July — not at a bar but a grocery store, she said — and suffered greatly for 29 days, but since has recovered.
She said she was glad some bars still are making enough to see the grants as a sign of hope. But she doesn't think $25,000 would get her through more than three months.
“It's OK. It's something to help somebody. But they should've done this when we were closed and we had no money,” she said.
Working at a temporary job Tuesday, sanding and staining wooden doors, Cavazos got emotional talking about her decision not to reopen.
“I don't know what I'm going to do, but I don't think I can do that any more. It just makes me sad, because I worked so hard,” she said. “It breaks my heart, but it's not my first broken heart.”
In other coronavirus-related business Tuesday, commissioners also approved COVID-19 testing programs for schools and foster care shelters; a nearly $1 million grant program for struggling small businesses through an agreement with the Maestro Entrepreneur Center; and virus-related upgrades of $2.2 million at the AT&T Center, $1.2 million at Freeman
Coliseum and $418,000 at Toyota Field.
As for the allocation for the new civil rights division, Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said the funds will pay for two prosecutors with felony experience, an investigator and a victim advocate to keep family members updated on cases.
Gonzales said the division will be modeled after similar efforts in Travis, Dallas and Harris counties. It will help address unrest that has swept through much of the nation since the May 25 death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police.
“We must do everything that we can to restore the public's faith during this period of turmoil across our country,” Gonzales said.
Clark and Christopher Herring, executive director of Global Chamber San Antonio, said the allocation should be larger.
Herring suggested the county invest $1 million — “a drop in the bucket in today's language.”
“It does seem that progress is being made,” in providing police transparency and accountability, Clark said. But he warned the wellintended effort “can end up being more of a slap in the face” if it falls short of supporting real needs.
County officials said the allocation for the new section will require a transfer of funds in the fiscal 2021 budget that still must be approved by commissioners.
Commissioners also emerged from a brief executive session and approved a motion to add 18 more voting sites, for a total of 302, on Nov. 3. Officials said the action complies with a judge's ruling last week in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Texas Organizing Project against the Bexar County Elections Department, seeking to provide more polling sites on Election Day.
Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen wasn't at the meeting but told reporters Monday she planned to have the 18 sites identified by Thursday.
With the county's new ExpressVote system, used for the first time a year ago in an election on 10 statewide constitutional amendments, voters who are registered in Bexar County will be able to cast their ballot at any of the 302 sites on Election Day.