Strip club wins fight to reopen under Abbott’s order — for now
A strip club in Houston won a temporary order from federal court Friday night to resume business this weekend under the governor’s reopen order, drawing the frustration of local officials tasked with enforcing new rules amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Club Onyx opened just after midnight Friday, claiming it’s a full-service restaurant and that strippers there were merely “entertainment.” The governor’s order allowed restaurants, retail businesses, malls and movie theaters to open at 25 percent capacity Friday.
“Yes, I have a nightclub license, but I’m not using the nightclub license right now,” owner Eric Langan said Saturday. “I’m operating as a restaurant. You have to order food. There’s a sign on the front door — you must be coming here to eat.”
He likened the strippers to entertainment in the same way that a piano player provides music at a steakhouse.
Houston officials had a different interpretation. Police officers raided the business within an hour of it opening, saying the business did not qualify under the categories the governor laid out. The officers threatened Langan with arrest if he didn’t close. Langan was defiant for hours but ultimately agreed to shut his doors around 4 a.m.
Then the business he owns, Trumps Inc., filed a federal lawsuit alleging the raid and forced closure violated his civil rights. The suit argued that his business was a restaurant and therefore able to accept customers.
At about 7 p.m. Friday night, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore granted the club’s owner a temporary restraining order allowing it to reopen. It also pro
hibited Houston police from arresting employees for doing so and ordered the agency to produce all records from its investigation.
Mayor Sylvester Turner said the club had primarily operated and categorized itself as a sexually oriented business before the pandemic and was claiming to be a restaurant only so it could reopen.
“I am asking the state to quickly clarify whether the governor intended for sexually oriented businesses like Onyx to be apart of the businesses authorized to open on May 1,” Turner said. “And if not, I am also asking the state, via the Texas Attorney General, to enforce the state’s order because the city cannot afford to expend its limited resources, i.e. fire and police, to defend the state’s order that a federal judge is now questioning.”
In the earlier confrontation, Langan showed media his Houston Health Department permit that lists Club Onyx as a “full-service restaurant.” The club is earmarked as a sexually oriented business on its license to sell alcohol.
With the federal court order in hand, Langan said he reopened again Saturday night — this time without issues. He said he was happy to put his staff back to work and put cash in their pockets.
About 180 customers came through, and he said they followed the capacity limitations and other social distancing rules.
“We’re making them social distance, there’s no contact, no touching, the stages are roped off,” Langan said. “There’s no putting money in G-strings sort of thing. They throw money on the stage and girls pick it up after they’re done and bring it to their locker.”
A court order for a permanent injunction is scheduled for Friday, Langan said.