Over Memorial Day weekend, a club in Houston hosted a pool party that looked straight out of spring break, with loads of bulky bare chests, bikinis and day drinking on an umbrella-filled patio during a balmy Saturday.
A day earlier, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott allowed bars — along with rodeos, bowling alleys and bingo halls — to open their doors at reduced capacity in the second phase of the state’s plan to restart the economy after shutting down in early April to slow the coronavirus.
The scene at Clé Houston, which quickly spread on social media, played to stereotypes of Texans-libertarian, don’t-tread-on-me types who prize personal freedom. But the reality of how many of the state’s citizens are behaving is much different. In other parts of the city that Saturday, bars were tame, even boring, with sparse attendance and plenty of crowd control. Some owners marked tables and floors with an X to reinforce social distancing. Another set out squeeze bottles filled with hand sanitizer.