MCALLEN, Texas- Bar owners across Texas are pushing Governor Greg Abbott to reopen their businesses. Some of them, taking a stand and planning a soft reopening this Friday.
Navin Chatlani is the owner of London Grill & Tavern in McAllen. He, like many other bar owners have been struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. Which is why he has decided to take part in the soft reopening.
“The concept that we are going for is to open up on Friday, a soft opening, just allowing our employees and our DJ’s to come in,” said Chatlani. “So, they can understand the rules that we are setting up so they have the understanding of precautions we are taking.”
Members of the Texas Bar & Nightclub Alliance (TBNA) wrote a letter to Governor Abbott detailing how they will handle their reopening.
The soft opening that’s happening this Friday is not be open to the general public, but Chatlani’s goal is for the governor to see they are adhering to all the safety guidelines.
“Hand sanitizer, masks by employees, spacing areas,” he said. “There are other points, but we just want to prove that we are able to handle that and we are able to control even at 50 percent occupancy, even if they come up with 25 percent, it’s still controllable.”
Chatlani said they opened last week for 4 days before being shut down. He said that in those days they got to experience how they would handle a reopening.
“We got to experience and we saw how patrons reacted. A lot of people follow the rules, 99.9 percent of people follow the rules,” said Chatlani.
Governor Abbott has yet to respond to TBNA regarding the opening of any bars or nightclubs in Texas.
