San Antonio Current - January 25, 2023

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Ready for Reform?

07 News The Opener News in

Bad Takes

The mayor’s failure to hold CPS to a renewable model shows a lack of leadership

Black and White Data

How racially integrated is Texas? That’s a complicated question.

Digging Out of a Hole

San Antonio small businesses say city grants to cover construction losses don’t go far enough

At a Tipping Point

Workers like me feel the pain from San Antonio’s lagging construction projects

Antonio service workers feel pressure to keep drinks flowing

Hot Dish

33 Music

From Scratch

Ahead of San Antonio show, Incubus’ Chris Kilmore discusses the band’s growth beyond nu-metal

Critics’ Picks

Developing His Voice

How Much is Enough?

On the Cover: A raft of cannabis reform bills have been filed in the Texas Legislature. Is the time right for them to gain momentum? Design: Samantha Serna.

UnSplash / Ryan Lange

HThe newest, super-contagious variant of COVID-19 has been detected in San Antonio. The XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant known as the “Kraken” has COVID cases soaring in the Northeast and is expected to become the dominant COVID variant in Bexar County in coming weeks. Metro Health is urging residents to stay up to date with their vaccinations and wear masks in crowded spaces.

A group of Texas lawmakers is pushing to end the state’s annual celebration of Confederate Heroes Day. For the third straight legislative session, State Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, has put forward a bill to end the Jan. 19 commemoration of the lives of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and others. He has the support of the House Democratic Caucus, Texas Black Leadership Caucus and Mexican American Legislative Caucus.

HA Bexar County deputy sheriff has been arrested over allegations that he threatened two cadets with his Taser and used the stun gun on one of them. Andrew Garcia, 23, has been charged with assault with bodily injury, harassment and official oppression. Sheriff Javier Salazar last week said his officer has started the process of terminating Garcia’s employment.

The San Antonio Police Department is participating in a new national initiative aimed at curbing police violence during traffic stops and providing relief for low-income residents. Under the terms of the Lights On! initiative, launched in the aftermath of the police killing of Philando Castile in Minnesota, San Antonio drivers on the city’s South, East and West sides with broken lights will receive $250 replacement vouchers instead of citations. — Abe Asher

Targeting the ‘other’ with State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst

Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

Last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he’d sign a bill banning citizens and foreign entities from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia from buying land in Texas. Predictably, he got a taker in the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature.

Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, filed just such legislation days later, arguing that she’s pushing back at “growing ownership” of Texas land by foreigners.

The open-ended proposal drew quick condemnation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which warned of collateral damage to legal residents and others. “It would violate the fundamental rights of not only

citizens of other countries regardless of their relationship to their governments, but also Green Card holders and possibly dual citizens,” the group said in a statement.

State Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, warned that Kolkhorst’s bill would worsen anti-Asian sentiment, which has been on the rise amid the pandemic and rising U.S.-China tensions. He also pointed out the arbitrary nature of the targeted countries.

“We oppose communist countries, right? Where’s Cuba? Where’s Venezuela? Where’s Vietnam?” Wu told the Texas Tribune. “You say that we oppose countries that are hostile to our country? Great, where is Saudi Arabia? Where is Afghanistan? Where are all these other places that have caused our country harm? It becomes a real slippery slope.”

As evidenced by Abbott’s willingness to throw billions of dollars at his open-ended Operation Lone Star border mission, the governor isn’t particularly concerned about slippery slopes. Nor, apparently, is Kolkhorst, the assclown who authored the failed 2017 bill that brought national embarrassment down on the state for proposing to ban transgender people from public restrooms. — Sanford Nowlin

Two top Bandera County Republican Party officials have been arrested and charged with state felonies of presenting a forged document. Conrad Striegl, the 73-year-old chair of the county GOP, and Cari Rene Leith, the 62-yearold treasurer, are charged with fraudulent securing of document execution between $2,500 and $30,000 to prevent former party chair Lynn Haueter from accessing the group’s bank account.

The Texas Department of Public Safety has opened applications for new medical marijuana dispensaries. The agency opened the application window last week and will keep it open until April 28 but likely won’t approve new dispensaries until after it sees whether the Texas Legislature passes laws expanding the state’s severely limited medical marijuana program. Texas has only licensed three dispensaries since launching its program in 2015.

San Antonio Councilwoman Ana Sandoval is resigning to take a job at University Health that will better position her to care for her family. Sandoval, a three-term progressive representing District 7, carved out a role as one of the council’s leading voices on environmental and public health issues. She will work on health equity issues in her new role, leaving the council charged with choosing a new member to serve through the May election. — Abe Asher

“We have been part of the San Antonio community for 50 years and expect to be celebrating another 50 years 50 years from now.”

— R.C Buford, SanAntonio Spurs CEO

ASSCLOWN ALERT

Twitter / @loiskolkhorst

Michael Karlis

The mayor’s failure to hold CPS to a renewable model shows lack of leadership

BY KEVIN SANCHEZ

Editor’s Note: Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.

While climate activist Greta Thunberg was getting hauled off by German police last Wednesday to protest the expansion of a coal mine, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg was setting a far less inspiring example.

Back in the fall of 2019, at a CPS Energy Board of Trustees meeting, Nirenberg stated what seemed like his commitment to holding the cityowned utility to rely on renewables for future growth.

“I want any generation, any capacity that we add to CPS’s portfolio, henceforth, to be renewable,” Nirenberg said.

That makes his endorsement of Portfolio 2, a plan to extend the life of CPS’s last remaining coal-fired power plant by converting it to natural gas, a clearcut backslide on that commitment and a broken promise to the environmentally conscious San Antonians who twice elected him.

When the Current held Nirenberg’s feet to the fire in 2017 for his seeming failure to stand with mayors across Texas and the nation in opposing President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, Nirenberg called up my editor to clarify, stating, “I think we should be part of that.”

True to his word, later that June, the newly seated mayor not only signed a resolution in support of the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, but also championed San Antonio’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

If the CPS Board of Trustees votes Jan. 23 to go ahead with Portfolio 2 — a vote scheduled after the Current’s press time — it will do so over the objections of the CAAP’s own Technical and Community Advisory Committee, which passed a draft resolution recommending Portfolio 9, a more popular and more ambitious investment in solar and wind energy in lieu of both coal

and natural gas.

You can watch last Tuesday’s meeting in its entirety on the Office of Sustainability’s Facebook page.

During that meeting, member atlarge Ryan Weber, who has also served as climate manager at the World Resources Institute, a global research nonprofit funded by the MacArthur Foundation, concluded that “it’s unlikely that Portfolio 2 achieves CAAP targets at all. I don’t think I’ve seen any evidence of that.”

University of Texas Health Science Center Professor Jimmy Perkins was even more adamant.

“Portfolio 2 should never have been considered in the first place,” he said. “It runs the Spruce Power Plant until 2065. How can you meet a 2050 goal of net-zero emissions when you’re burning gas until 2065?”

He added: “I don’t know what they’re going to do with the methane that leaks from the wells, but that to me is an automatic disqualifier.”

While natural gas is a cleaner energy source than coal, it’s certainly not free of harmful pollution.

“Coal is just about the dirtiest way to produce electricity, so almost anything will seem cleaner in comparison,” Mark Specht, senior analyst for Western States Energy wrote for the Union of Concerned Scientists. But, crucially, “natural gas power plants still produce a significant amount of air pollution, and that’s a problem.”

Indeed, methane is a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of exacerbating warming temperatures, and it’s the primary contributor to ground-level ozone, exposure to which causes an estimated one million premature deaths worldwide annually.

According to data from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “even as carbon dioxide emissions decelerated

during the pandemic-related lockdowns of 2020, atmospheric methane shot up.”

The Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to prudently transitioning away from fossil fuels, last year wrote that the benefits of moving to clean energy should outweigh those of investing in gas facilities.

“For communities that have been historically impacted by pollution, avoiding gas with clean energy can be an opportunity to both reduce electricity bills and future healthcare bills, which will make it increasingly difficult for utilities and investors to justify new gas investment.”

Yet the economic consulting firm San Antonio relied on for its cost estimates, Charles River Associates (CRA), has a fraught history of rationalizing just such difficult-to-justify bygone fossil fuel investments. Benjamin Franta, senior researcher at the University of Oxford Sustainable Law Program, made a study of CRA and didn’t mince words.

“Every time a major climate policy was proposed, these economists would be there, writing newspaper articles and giving testimony in front of Congress, from carbon tax conversations in the Clinton administration to opposing international treaties, like the Kyoto Protocol,” he wrote.

Franta, in an interview with Grist magazine, all but called CRA a hired gun that provides ideological cover for delaying climate action. “They also worked to defeat the cap-and-trade bills that were proposed throughout the 2000s,” he said.

Sadly, if Portfolio 2 passes as expected, most in San Antonio will neither have mulled over or discussed the options. Many may not even realize the decision has been made.

“[Live-streaming] the entire sausage-making process does not equal community inclusion,” Greg Harman, the editor at environmental blog Deceleration News said in a social media post.

Case in point, only one public comment arrived before the deadline at Tuesday’s meeting of the Community Advisory Committee, and I counted seven real-time viewers at its peak.

Nationwide, cheaper clean energy portfolios could save tens of billions of dollars compared to offering the same services with gas-fired plants, and excuses based on the supposed resiliency of fossil fuels are farcical. The surest way to avoid self-inflicted disasters like the collapse of our electric grid two winters ago is to eschew the cowboy mentality of “going it alone” and hook up Texas’ grid to those powering other states.

And lest industry-friendly pundits and politicians rewrite history, remember that it was solar and wind energy that not only mitigated the 2021 calamity but spared us massive blackouts when several plants buckled under the extreme heatwave last summer. While scientists race to achieve fusion, we should not forget that a gigantic fusion reactor is already up and running every day.

It’s called the sun.

As for our flip-flopping mayor, Nirenberg is padding a resume of being a progressive in the tweets and a corporatist in the sheets.

“San Antonio is not going to abate homeless encampments just because we don’t like the sight of them,” the mayor told the Texas Tribune last May. “That’s not what we do.”

Well said. Except SAPD has abated homeless encampments, repeatedly, displacing those living under Interstate 37 so the Texas Department of Transportation could lease the property out.

As long as San Antonio mayors exude wishy-washiness in the face of monied interests, they may ably pose as likable commercials for the city and edge out grievance candidates like Greg Brockhouse come Election Day.

But if we must turn to Swedish youth for unflinching leadership on the big challenges ahead, what hope do we have?

Courtesy Photo / OCI Solar

Black and White Data

How racially integrated is Texas? That’s a complicated question.

BY MICHAEL KARLIS

Last week, just three days after San Antonio played host to one of the largest Martin Luther King Jr. Day marches in the nation, the Lone Star State celebrated Confederate Heroes Day.

The latter holiday, enshrined into law by the Texas Legislature in 1973, is a stark reminder of the state’s complicated history with race. It’s a former slave state and a member of the Confederacy, and racial segregation remained on its books for nearly 100 years after the Civil War.

Even so, Texas has made great headway in race relations. A recent study by personal finance site WalletHub even ranked the state as the seventh-most racially integrated in the nation.

But what exactly is the study talking about?

“I think it’s hard to tell what the data actually means,” said Cal Jillson, a professor of Texas and American history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “I think you have to view [the study] as a conversation starter, but it’s certainly not definitive.”

Jillson, the author of books including Lone Star Tarnished: A Critical Look at Texas Politics and Public Policy, and an expert on race and the American Dream, is skeptical of WalletHub’s analysis, especially the health and education data used in ranking of states.

The study analyzed data in categories including employment, wealth, education, health and civic engagement to determine how racially integrated states are between Black and white residents. Researchers gave states scores on metrics specific to each category, then ranked them accordingly. For example, the study used the share of adults with at least a high school diploma as a metric when ranking states on racial integration in education.

Loopholes and conflation

WalletHub ranked Texas’ education system as the eighth-most racially integrated in the nation. Texas also tied with California, New Mexico, Wyoming and West Virginia as the state with the

smallest racial gap between Blacks and whites who had earned a high school diploma.

Jillson isn’t buying it.

In 2005, Texas’ high school graduation rate was among the worst in the nation, with only 72% of students graduating on time, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. However, the state’s graduation rate has climbed ever since, with academics attributing the current graduation rate, now around 90%, to a major loophole. Specifically, Texas allows schools to avoid counting students who left for another district for a variety of reasons.

“Texas went from having comparatively low graduation rates to a very high graduation rate among the 50 states because of that change,” Jillson said. “You can’t tell whether the difference between white and Black graduation rates are narrower than in other states because you can’t trust the numbers to begin with.”

In WalletHub’s analysis, Texas also scored above average on racial integration in health care. However, the study fails to include data about the number of people in Texas without health insurance, which at around 18%, stands as the highest in the U.S., according to the nonprofit United Health Foundation.

“Texas has more uninsured people than any other state in the nation,” Jillson said. “We spend less on mental health treatment than almost any other state in the nation. And yet, we’re ranked No. 3 in health [in this study].”

Overall, WalletHub’s study appears to conflate racial diversity with racial integration. Although a geographic region may be diverse, that doesn’t mean residents of all races enjoy similar economic outcomes.

For example, San Antonio is one of the few majority-minority cities in the U.S., with less than a quarter of the city’s population identifying as white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. However, the Pew Research Center named the Alamo City and its surroundings the most economically segregated large metro area in the U.S. in 2012.

“In San Antonio, you have the same divisions that you have in Dallas or Houston, with Hispanics mostly living on the South Side, African Americans on the East, and white people on the North Side,” Jillson said.

Making progress

So, how racially integrated is Texas?

It’s hard to come up with a definitive answer, and it’s much too complex to answer in a dataset, according to Jillson.

However, there are specific steps the state can take to improve access and outcomes for people of all races.

William Darity, an economics professor at Duke University and expert on public policy and African American studies, served as a consultant for WalletHub’s analysis.

Darity was unavailable for comment for this story. However, in the report, the professor points out that a national healthcare system is the only way to ensure that everyone has equal access

to necessary health services.

“While we need a national system of health insurance or health services that assures all Americans of quality healthcare, states can implement such programs as models for a federal system,” he wrote.

Jillson agrees with Darity’s sentiments, adding that a better statewide Medicaid system funded under ObamaCare could put Texas closer to achieving racial equality.

Further, Jillson said Texas’ state government could divert more funds to public education instead of relying on municipalities to fund public education through property taxes — something that favors wealthier communities with higher home values.

Darity goes one step further in the report, encouraging school districts to tackle issues like the lack of Black representation in advanced placement classes. Even so, he’s wary that any state can genuinely achieve racial integration without the help and funding of the federal government.

Jaime Monzon

Digging Out of a Hole

San Antonio small businesses say city grants to cover construction losses don’t go far enough

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

Kayla Matta, owner of Sunshine Bakery on North New Braunfels Avenue, isn’t jumping for joy about San Antonio’s plan to provide $2.25 million in grants to businesses that have suffered from the city’s delayed construction projects.

It’s not because she thinks she’ll have trouble qualifying.

Matta’s parking lot has been blocked to varying degrees since last fall, when workers dug up the street out front to make improvements. She now operates on a pickup-and-delivery model since her store’s so hard to reach. A loyal customer recently suffered a blowout trying to navigate the remains of the street.

While Matta recently applied for a county grant to help cover lost revenue, she’s concerned the city’s $10,000-to-$35,0000 grants — leftover money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act — will be depleted quickly. After all, they’re open to businesses in 15 different construction zones now active around San Antonio.

“It sounds like the problem is there’s not enough to go around,” Matta said. “I wish there was a way to send in a photo with your application and say, ‘Look at what you have us working with.’”

She’s not the only skeptic. After city officials unveiled details of the relief program during a Wednesday city council meeting, other small business owners said the outlay isn’t sufficient to cover the pain

they’ve weathered for months, and in some cases, years.

“I think it’s a start, but it’s a start a year or two late,” said Aaron Peña, owner of St. Mary’s Strip nightspot The Squeezebox. “It might prolong the inevitable for some people — a closure — but it’s not life-changing.”

The program’s timing four months ahead of May’s citywide election also should raise eyebrows, Peña added.

Business owners on the Strip said they were first told construction there would be completed in six months or so. However, after a series of delays, the once-bustling nightlife destination now resembles a war zone. Much of the street is closed to vehicles, and sidewalks leading to many of the affected businesses have been reduced to rubble.

“We’re two and a half years into this thing, and it’s been pushed back and pushed back so many times I’m not even sure when it was originally supposed to be done,” Peña said. “Now, we’re looking at summer of 2023.”

Slipping through the cracks

Peña said he plans to apply for the city money. He’s already seeking similar funds from the county and the state. But he acknowledges that many mom-andpop businesses aren’t lucky enough to have a CPA to provide guidance.

“I think it’s going to work a lot like it did with PPP money during the pandemic,” he said. “If you don’t know how to navigate the process, you’re not going to apply.”

Chris Cullum of St. Mary’s Strip-adjacent restaurants Cullum’s Attaboy and Cullum’s Attagirl said the city’s maximum $35,000 payout would only cover a fraction of the hundreds of thousands in revenues his businesses have lost out on during the construction.

“Stakeholders on St. Mary’s Strip have lost more than you can imagine,” he said. “Consumers are habitual, and that has been destroyed. It will take us years to recover. Once the construction is done and the sidewalks are in, people don’t just magically show up right away.”

He said the amount of time it took city officials to finally respond to the cries of small businesses has left him disillusioned.

Eric Hanken, owner of longtime St. Mary’s Strip music venue The Mix said business owners have discussed suing the city over the construction delays. He said he wouldn’t be surprised to see some make good on that threat if they’re dissatisfied with the size of the grants they receive from the city.

“The issue with these projects is that people cycle through,” Hanken said. “The person who you were initially talking to is gone, and now it’s someone else. There’s no ultimate responsibility.”

Sunshine Bakery’s Matta said things have improved slightly in the area around her shop. After she called the city enough times, work crews opened up limited access to her lot. Still, she’s not holding her breath for things to improve quickly — even if she manages to land money from the city.

“It doesn’t seem like they’re really finishing anything,” she said. “They’re just digging one hole and moving on to another.”

Sanford Nowlin

At a Tipping Point

Workers like me feel the pain from San Antonio’s lagging construction projects

BY DALIA GULCA

The never-ending construction project on the St. Mary’s Strip is hurting more than just the bottom lines of small businesses.

For individuals who work at those bars and restaurants — door people, security, bartenders, sound engineers — the glacial pace of the work isn’t just toxic to San Antonio’s cultural lifeblood but our livelihoods. We’re collateral damage.

I started working St. Mary’s Strip music venue the Paper Tiger in June 2021, a month after construction started. Around that time, it looked like the area was on the rebound from the pandemic. As a doorgirl-turned-bartender in what’s become one of my favorite jobs, I noticed crowds build and dwindle. I have experienced big nights and achingly slow ones — and those slow ones are a hit to my finances.

As with many involved in the hospitality industry, my earnings as a bartender depend on whims. They’re determined by how many people decide to show up. That, in turn, is governed by factors such as the weather, the day of the week and, of course, how difficult construction makes it for them.

Since tips make up most of a bartender’s livelihood, it’s not a job with a stable week-to-week income. In part, I bartend because it gives me the freedom to pursue personal dreams and goals. When the money’s good, that is. But there’s no guarantee the money will be good, and lately, with the street and sidewalks difficult to navigate without breaking an ankle, the money’s been dwindling.

During a free Saturday show with vendors in the venue’s courtyard, I was the only one bartending. Even so, it was so sparsely attended that I left with

around $50 in my pocket. Pre-construction, the show probably would have pulled 200 to 300 guests.

Some nights, especially if a show undersells, I get sent home early. That happened with an indie-pop show not too long ago. Lately, though, the norm is just being scheduled less. With fewer bands touring in the winter and fewer patrons wanting to brave the construction mess, I’m usually just getting called in once or twice a week.

Consecutive slow nights lead to financial instability or having to put more hours into a side hustle that eats into my time for creative projects. The unreliability doesn’t help me make financial plans either. I’m sure many of us working up and down the Strip are facing similar uncertainty.

As we wait for workers to complete the construction and for the city to compensate affected businesses, it’s worth reminding people that places enduring months of construction offer local food, culture and music worth navigating around construction cones. And that they support the lives and ambitions of people like me.

Just don’t break an ankle stumbling through the rubble.

Sanford Nowlin

Ready for Reform?

Pressure is building for the Texas lawmakers to expand medical cannabis and consider decriminalization

BY SANFORD NOWLIN

Even though the Texas Legislature created the state’s medical marijuana policy, the Compassionate Use Program (CUP), nearly eight years ago, it remains one of the most restrictive in the United States.

State lawmakers have several times broadened the number of conditions for which medical cannabis could be prescribed — PTSD and all forms of cancer were added in 2021. But, even so, just over 43,000 patients were enrolled in the program as of December, according to data from the Department of Public Safety.

And experts believe the number of people actually accessing cannabis under CUP is considerably smaller. The law’s limit on the amount of THC allowable in cannabis products is a turnoff to many who qualify, and it remains closed to people who suffer from chronic pain, a condition recognized by other states’

medical pot rules.

“We need a comparable program to what other states have adopted,” said Jax James, executive director for Texas NORML, which advocates for marijuana reforms. “If our state is going to continue moving ahead with baby steps, we’re going to continue holding back patient access.”

At present, 37 states and the District of Columbia have laws permitting medical use of marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That includes the four that border Texas — all of which have adopted far more robust plans.

More patients, more THC

With Texas’ new legislative session underway, lawmakers face increasing pressure from voters, medical professionals and the state’s burgeoning cannabis

industry to catch up. Advocates also argue that the time is right for lawmakers to decriminalize cannabis in the state or at least scale back its comparably harsh penalties for possession.

The question is whether the Republican-controlled Lege is willing to put politics aside and enact reforms, advocate argue. If they don’t, Texans will continue to turn to illegal sources for cannabis and stymie the growth of a homegrown cannabis industry, which is still in its infancy.

“We’re looking for safe and legal access inside the state of Texas,” said Lisa Sewell, director of operations for Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy, a coalition working to reform the state’s pot laws. “We’re not looking for the black market.”

In New Mexico, which legalized marijuana for both medical and recreational purposes, dispensaries posted more than $40 million in total cannabis sales in December, according to that state’s Cannabis Control Division. To Sewell’s point, some of the highest sales numbers were reported by dispensaries directly

Courtesy Photo / Texas Original Compassionate Cultivation

across the Texas border.

Sewell, James and others argue that expanding Texas’ CUP to include people with chronic pain is key to driving enrollment — and it’s a change that could have enough support to win approval this legislative session.

During past sessions, Republican legislators viewed chronic pain with suspicion, calling it a beard for people looking for a legal way to get high. However, experts say it’s one of the conditions with the most scientific data to support the efficacy of its treatment with medical cannabis.

What’s more, the growing toll of the opioid crisis makes it easier for proponents to make a case that Texans should have access to low-risk forms of pain relief, Morris Denton, CEO of Texas Original Compassionate Cultivation, one of Texas’ three approved medical marijuana suppliers told the Current late last year.

“With the opioid epidemic that continues to just rage, with the fentanyl issue, with all the drugs coming across the border, with the addiction rates continuing to spike, with the number of overdose deaths in Texas continuing to climb, there’s got to be an alternative for doctors to be able to start their patients out on something that’s not, No. 1, so addictive. And, No. 2, so easy to abuse that it results in overdoses,” Denton said. “And that’s cannabis. And again, the polling on that spikes very strong, especially if you characterize it as an alternative to opioids.”

Reform proponents said they’re also cautiously optimistic they can gain lawmakers’ support to raise the level of THC allowed in products sold under CUP. Under current rules that is set at 1% by weight, meaning 99% of any gummy or capsule must be filler.

Other states have an upper limit of 5% or impose no cap at all.

Texas’ artificially low cap prices out people with prescriptions calling for high daily doses, advocates argue. The oils used as filler in products also causes gastro-intestinal issues for some users, they argue. To spend less to get the potency they need, some patients resort to buying from street dealers, according to cannabis advocates.

Decriminalization

As of press time, Texas lawmakers have filed a raft of bills proposing reforms to CUP or the state’s marijuana possession laws, many coming in before the start of the session.

The broadest of those, which would legalize weed for personal use or give doctors the ultimate authority about who should qualify for medical marijuana prescriptions, are likely dead in the water given Republicans’ stranglehold over the legislative process.

Even so, some advocates are cautiously hopeful that this may be the session where Texas finally rolls back its harsh possession penalties or enacts a citeand-release approach in which people caught with small amounts are ticketed rather than arrested.

“We need a serious discussion of decriminalization in Texas, where there are so many disproportionate arrests,” NORML’s James said.

Analyses of arrest data show that Black people are arrested for violating pot possession laws at higher rates than whites even though both groups consume cannabis at roughly the same rate.

A 2022 analysis by NORML of marijuana possession arrests in Texas from 2017 to 2019 found that Blacks comprised 30.2% of all possession arrests even though the ethnic group comprised just 12.9% of the state’s population.

Adding to the pressure for lawmakers are ballot initiatives recently passed in roughly a half-dozen Texas municipalities calling for decriminalization.

Last May, 85% of Austin voters approved a ballot measure halting low-level cannabis arrests and banning police from using no-knock warrants. Activists in San Antonio appear to have collected enough petition signatures to place a similar proposal on this May’s ballot in San Antonio.

Conservative lawmakers in the Texas Legislature are pushing back with bills that bar district attorneys from selectively enforcing state laws such as those governing pot possession. However, it’s unclear how much traction those will gain.

Overall, reform advocates said the current climate is ripe for a robust debate on the state’s possession laws.

“I definitely feel more hopeful on the medical side, but I think we have a chance this time around to push decriminalization to the fore,” James said. “I think we can get something done.”

Broad support

Support from the “Big Three” Republicans who will help decide the fate of reform is still open to ques-

tion. But advocates said they’re heartened that both Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan have publicly stated their support for discussing lower penalties for pot possession.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who controls the fate of legislation in the Texas Senate, has been a harder read, and he’s shot down reform efforts in the past.

Still, advocates said recent polls show that Texans of both political parties widely support both medical marijuana and decriminalization. Lawmakers are well aware of the numbers, they add. Even Patrick.

In a University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll from December, only 17% of Texas voters said they want a complete state prohibition of cannabis use.

Beyond that, 72% of respondents said they support reducing the punishment for possession of small amounts of marijuana to a citation and a fine. Among Republicans, 63% favored reducing pot penalties, while 84% of Democrats and 66% of independents supported the idea.

Of course, Texas Republicans have shown a willingness to ignore public opinion on matters such as abortion, but political observers say they continue to do so at their own risk. Digging in to appease the party base may have short-term benefits — it also has longer-term repercussions.

“The Republican Party in the state of Texas, by a wide margin, supports legalizing medical cannabis,” Texas Original CEO Denton told the Current late last year. “And when you start to see the kinds of numbers that support it, eventually legislators either get caught up to that and embrace the changing reality or over perhaps a longer period of time, you’ll get a new set of faces in the capitol.”

Flickr / Ed Schipul

JO KOY

Born Joseph Glenn Herbert, Filipino American comedian Jo Koy got his stage handle from a family nickname based on his grandmother’s use of the Tagalog language. He rose to stardom after being featured as a regular on Chelsea Lately, and his relatable style of comedy put him on a superstar trajectory. As evidence of that status, he’s broken box office sales records at some of the nation’s highest-profile venues. In 2017, he shattered the sales record at the Blaisdell Concert Hall in Honolulu, leading the city’s mayor to declare Nov. 24 Jo Koy Day. The comic’s list of screen credits also continues to grow. Last year, he released the new standup special Live from the Los Angeles Forum, which premiered on Netflix last September, and he also starred in the movie Easter Sunday $51.50-$61.50, 8 p.m., AT&T Center, One AT&T Center, (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com. — Brandon Rodriguez

ART

‘REFINED REFLECTIONS INTO THE FORMIDABLE: CONTEMPORARY LATINO ART FROM THE ZOE DIAZ COLLECTION’

The UTSA Southwest Campus, formerly the Southwest School of Art, is hosting an art exhibit in the Russell Hill Rogers Galleries showcasing contemporary Latinx art from San Antonio and beyond. Curated by Scott A. Sherer, “Refined Reflections into the Formidable: Contemporary Latino Art from the Zoe Diaz Collection” features work by creators including Chuck Ramirez, Gloria Osuna Perez, Vincent Valdez and Ana Fernandez. Visitors will encounter large-scale portraits, drawings and mixed-media sculptures spanning generations. Not only do the pieces show off lasting Latinx cultural and artistic traditions, but they reveal the artists’ individual perspectives arranged around themes of community and family legacies, spirituality and everyday life. In addition to the exhibition, curator, activist and author Lucy Lippard will make a keynote presentation at the San Antonio Museum of Art on Jan. 28 (free, 1-4 p.m., 200 W. Jones Ave., (210) 978-8100, samuseum.org) followed by a conversation with a few of the exhibiting artists. Free, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday (and by appointment), UTSA Southwest Campus, 300 Augusta St., (210) 458-43352, art.utsa.edu. — Dalia Gulca

Bushman (viola), Ignacio Gallego (cello) and Sarah Silver Manzke (vi-

Tickets are free through Agarita’s website and include a donation option. Free, 7:30 p.m., McAllister Auditorium, San Antonio College, 1300 San Pedro Ave., (210) 486-0497, agarita.org. — Macks Cook

SAT | 01.28

SPECIAL EVENT

WWE ROYAL RUMBLE

One of the WWE’s biggest-grossing pay-per-view events, the Royal Rumble is returning to the Alamo City. Beyond its star-studded lineup, the annual event’s key attraction is a surprise. So far, this year’s Royal Rumble has five scheduled matches, and virtually anyone can win and

olin) will play a range of works including a piano quartet by Johannes Brahms, a solo cello piece composed by Gaspar Cassadó and a solo piano waltz by Frédéric Chopin. The concert will be complemented by choreography by Ballet SA, featuring dancers Sofie Bertolini, Logan Acker, Sabrina Kheirolomoom, Brenna Mulligan and Aidan Carrasquel.

Mandee Johnson Photography

Gloria Osuma Pérez

Natalia Sun

Courtesy Image / WWE

secure a spot at WrestleMania. The stacked card includes the battle between WWE Universal Championship-holder Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens, a 30-man Royal Rumble match and a 30-woman Royal Rumble match. Fans also will witness the program’s Lights Out match with Bray Wyatt battling the LA Knight and the WWE Raw Women’s Championship featuring champ Bianca Belair grappling with Alexa Bliss. For those unable to attend, the pay-per-view event will be available for purchase on Peacock, the new home of WWE’s pay-per-view services, to premium subscribers. $150 and up, 6:30 p.m., Alamodome, 100 Montana St., (210) 2073663, alamodome.com. — BR

SAT | 01.28

SPORTS SPURS VS. SUNS

The last time the Spurs and Suns tipped-off at the AT&T Center, Deandre Ayton, Devin Booker, and Mikal Bridges proved to be a handful for San Antonio, each scoring at least 20 points in a 133-95 blowout. Spurs forward Keldon Johnson finished the night with a team high 27 points, and in a familiar refrain this season, he was one of the few standouts in defeat. It’s been an up-and-down season for Johnson, who — outside of rookie Jeremy Sochan — appears to have been shaken the most by the departure of Spurs former shot whisperer Chip Engelland to the Oklahoma City Thunder. With Devin Vassell likely sidelined through February, pointguard Tre Jones has emerged as a consistent scoring threat for San Antonio, lightening the load for Johnson on the offensive end. In an anniversary season seemingly defined by nostalgia rather than on-court success, the youthful Spurs face a Suns team in the process of changing ownership and presently trending in the wrong direction. $18 and up, 7 p.m., AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Parkway, (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com, KENS. — M. Solis

WED | 02.01

SPECIAL EVENT

THE DECK INVESTIGATES WITH ASHLEY FLOWERS

Author and true crime podcast host Ashley Flowers is coming to San Antonio at a time when live podcaster experiences are skyrocketing in popularity. In her live show The Deck Investigates, the host of The Deck, Crime Junkie, Red Ball and other true crime pods focuses on taking her audience through the process and methods of exploring notorious cold cases. Despite plagiarism allegations against her and co-host Brit Prawat’s Crime Junkie podcast and accusations that they deleted episodes lacking source attribution, Flowers’ hardcore fans haven’t waned in their support, and she continues to dominate the true crime digital landscape. $51.75 and up, 7 p.m., Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — Karly Williams

himself committing the crime. On death row, he’s seemingly replaced by a mechanic named Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty), who leads a different yet familiar life. As the Crite-

rion Collection describes it, “the film expands the horizons of the medium, taking its audience on a journey through the unknown and the unknowable.” The movie also is well known for its music, which includes a score by Angelo Badalamenti as well as songs by David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing Pumpkins. Badalamenti, who frequently worked with Lynch, died in December. Fans can catch this screening to look back on one of the composer’s iconic contributions to the films of the Academy Award-winning director. $10, 7 p.m., Slab Cinema Arthouse, 134 Blue Star, (210) 212-9373, slabcinemaarthouse. com. — Christianna Davies

FRI | 02.03

SPORTS SPURS VS. 76ERS

LOST HIGHWAY

One of David Lynch’s most surreal works of art is coming to the Slab Cinema Arthouse. Lost Highway tells the story of musician Fred Madison (Bill Pullman), who is sent mysterious VHS tapes of himself and his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette). When Renee is murdered, Fred receives a tape of

During his tenure as head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, Spurs assistant coach Brett Brown endured the infamous “process” that ultimately landed team center Joel Embiid via the draft. The league MVP candidate scored 40 points in a losing effort against the Spurs back in October — one of San Antonio’s few signature wins this season. Embiid and the

Reminder: Although live events have returned, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Check with venues to make sure scheduled events are still happening, and please follow all health and safety guidelines.

Courtesy Photo / Majestic Theatre

Courtesy Photo / San Antonio Spurs

76ers make their only appearance in San Antonio this Friday to close out a four-game homestand for the Spurs. Coach Gregg Popovich and his young roster next embark on the team’s annual Rodeo Road Trip. This season’s jaunt includes nine contests that stretch through February, including stops in Chicago and Atlanta to face former Spurs DeMar DeRozan and Dejounte Murray, respectively. Of particular note to those with an eye toward the NBA Draft Lottery in May are consecutive games against the Detroit Pistons and Charlotte Hornets, who currently lead the Spurs in the painful slog to last place. $16 and up, 7 p.m., AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Parkway, (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com, Bally Sports SW-SA. — MS

ART ‘JOOYOUNG CHOI: SONGS OF RESILIENCE FROM THE TAPESTRY OF FAITH’

The Contemporary at Blue Star is showcasing works by Houston-based multidisciplinary artist JooYoung Choi in “Songs of Resilience from the Tapestry of Faith.” The exhibition features paintings, sculptures, animation and music from the Cosmic Womb, a sci-fi/fantasy world of Choi’s creation. Through various media and intricate world-building inspired by childhood experiences, Choi uses her work to explore themes of identity, belonging, trauma and resilience. She also examines media representation of girls, women, intersex, transgender and nonbinary people of color. The exhibition highlights several of Cosmic Womb’s characters and stories. One of the featured works is Spectra Force Vive: Infinite Pie Delivery Service, a 33-minute film featuring multiple forms

THEATER DISNEY’S ALADDIN

From the producer of The Lion King, another beloved Disney musical will take the Majestic stage in February. With music by Tony and Academy Award winner Alan Menken and spectacular set design, complete with disappearing acts and flying carpet rides, Disney’s Aladdin promises an enchanting experience for all ages. In this spellbinding tale of adventure and friendship, mischievous but lovable street wanderer Aladdin meets the feisty and free-spirited Princess Jasmine, daughter of the sultan of Agrabah. After guards catch Aladdin with the princess, the mysterious Jafar comes to the rescue. On orders from Jafar to retrieve a lamp from the Cave of Wonders, Aladdin accidentally releases a charismatic genie who can grant him three wishes. After Aladdin befriends the genie, he discovers that Jafar is an evil sorcerer intent on overthrowing Jasmine’s kingdom. Armed with his wishes and wit, Aladdin embarks on a treacherous quest to outsmart the cunning magician and save Agrabah from a reign of tyranny. $50 and up, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — Caroline Wolff

of animation, stop-motion, found objects and uniquely designed puppets representing characters of a wide spectrum of identities. This film and Choi’s other colorful, immersive pieces will transport visitors into a new world. Free, opening reception 6-9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, on view noon-5 p.m. Wednesday, noon-8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Contemporary at Blue Star, 116 Blue Star, contemporarysa.org. — CD

Courtesy Photo / San Antonio Spurs

Deen van Meer © Disney

Courtesy Photo / Contemporary at Blue Star

‘Free Thought and Cool Things’

Instagram

account Deco Memes builds following with its spot-on critiques of San Antonio

sprawl

BY BILL BAIRD

During its eight months of existence, the Instagram account @decomemesdistrict has tapped into the San Antonio zeitgeist, using humor to give voice to residents frustrated by the city’s sprawl-centric urban design.

It’s a design that by default favors large corporations over small business owners and suburban blandness over livability, said the account’s creator, Carlos Perez.

“The account is trying to celebrate San Antonio but also pointing out the absurdity of what a city is, according to San Antonio,” he said.

Deco Memes District typically skewers symbols of our city’s antiquated development mindset — from downtown projects like the Shops at Rivercenter to its seemingly endless quest to build more stadiums at taxpayer expense.

The account also takes aim at “stroads,” an urban development term referring to the often-dangerous intersections between highly trafficked roads and slower moving streets. Think Bandera or Culebra roads for an example.

What’s humorous isn’t always laugh-outloud funny. Sometimes, it’s simply some-

body speaking the truth in a refreshingly blunt way, casting aside niceties and cutting through the bullshit. That’s where Deco Memes find its strength: you don’t always laugh because it’s funny but sometimes because it’s a bitter recognition of an unspoken truth.

A favorite Decomemes punching bag is the bizarre Alamo Heights phenomenon of white guys nicknamed “Cuatro.” A recent meme depicts a Range Rover with a Photoshopped “CUATRO” personalized license plate, while in the background we see a painting of a battle from the Texas Revolution reading, in all caps, “REMEMBER WHAT YOU’RE FIGHTING FOR.”

Another meme skewers an Express-News article discussing possible names for a San Antonio-Austin metroplex. The list of potential monikers suggested by Reddit users — Austanto, Sanmarcraunfels, Post-DFW, Alamoustin, Little California, SAATX and others — is layered over an image of I-35 snarled in construction traffic.

The most common theme, however, is San Antonio’s crushing sprawl. Against a horrific collage of snarled traffic on Loop 410 near North Star Mall, a cartoon Goofy asks a potential mate, “Damn Shawty, you live like this?”

It’s likely to resonate with anyone who’s spent time in gridlock at that spot.

“The account can be criticism of people and institutions, but sometimes we’re just talking about intersections — hyperlocal knowledge,” Perez explained. “Bandera and 1604, McCullough and Mulberry. Is Hildebrand one lane or two between Broadway and San Pedro? There are a lot of stinkers that ruin everything. Like our stroads. Too many lanes to be functional, inherently unsafe for both pedestrians and cars. A massive entity of waste and inefficiency. It feels like that mindset has guided all decisions.”

Through humor and the power of online memes, Perez is opening the door to discussions about serious issues. His posts typically garner hundreds of reactions and have gained popularity among San Antonio’s movers and shakers — small business owners, city officials and those advocating for a new development mindset.

Hitting close to home

Deco Memes’ broad appeal was on full display during a recent installment of PechaKucha, the popular speaking event, at which Perez wowed the audience.

“Do I even need to talk?” Perez asked as the Tobin Center’s roaring laughter overwhelmed his prepared remarks. However, as his talk went on, the laughter abated as his stinging,

MDeco Memes creator Carlos Perez speaks during a recent appearance at PechaKucha.

Courtesy Photo / PechaKucha

provocative rebukes of entrenched local mindsets hit closer and closer to home.

Mariah DeLaye Lange, one of PechaKucha’s planners, is a longtime Deco Memes fan.

As a fellow small business owner who’s run a catering company — Sage and Honey — for 20 years and conducts urban advocacy work through her day job at the San Antonio Parks Foundation, Lange said Deco Memes’ messages resonate with her.

“I’ve wanted to see things flourish in SA, especially small business, and Deco Memes really touched on that underlying feeling,” she said. “Why is there so much money in SA being poured into things that don’t help communities, that don’t help the city as a whole?”

Perez said his online commentary all comes back to small businesses and the corridors that allow them to thrive.

“SA wants tech jobs and to be cool and be international, but I really think small business is the actual culture builder of San Antonio,” he said. “What if, instead of SA’s current approach — expansion at all costs or building things for people who don’t live here — we just identify the coolest things about SA, [such as] the fact that it’s 300 years old, all the historic buildings, all the greenways and creeks, and just

build from those strengths?”

These frustrations led directly to Perez’s opening of his meme account. He wanted to create a space for residents to speak openly about their frustrations.

“Somebody told me the account resonates because it demonstrates how much time we spend in our cars in San Antonio,” he said. “Our collective consciousness is built on waiting at the same lights and zig-zagging to the same places ... . We’re all living parallel lives, all driving to the same downtown spots, without the true benefits of an urban lifestyle.”

Perez said multiple city development officials have reached out to him, hoping to harness, or at least understand, the power of meme culture.

“A meme is a kernel of a coherent thought,” Perez said with a laugh. “If nobody can question things, if people in power can’t laugh at themselves and institutions can’t have a sense of humor ... it’s just not fun to live like that. It’s OK to be serious and silly [at the same time].”

To be sure, Decomemes’ humor plays an essential role in calling out the city’s absurdities and shared experiences. As Mark Twain once wrote, “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

Embrace of place

Perez’s frustration with San Antonio’s apparent infatuation with corporate outsiders over homegrown entrepreneurism stems from his time as a small business owner. He and his wife own and operate Way Out Kombucha, which produces the fermented Chinese tea renowned for its health benefits by using yaupon holly leaves, North America’s only native caffeine source.

He finds it absurd that U.S. companies import coffee beans and tea from all over the world but aren’t making use of a domestically grown plant.

“It’s crazy to think we have our own caffeinated plant and weren’t using it,” he said. “It just makes sense. We could sell kombucha just from a health perspective like everyone else, advertising ‘millions of probiotics,’ but the idea of native consumption was important to us.”

That embrace of place began when a vacant storefront became available near Perez’s Deco District home. He snatched the lease before it could become “another MetroPCS or something” and launched his business, tailoring its product to local tastes with flavors including local mesquite, prickly pear and Fredericksburg peach.

“[It] should really be easier to start a small business than bring in another chain,” he said.

Urban development isn’t a onesize-fits-all proposition, according to Perez. He also said he’s aware that the diversity and thriving small businesses he advocates for on his account already exist in San Antonio.

“There’s already a diverse community that literally fills a bingo hall by Tip Top Cafe every night of the week,” he said. “And that’s what San Antonio can preserve — having all these different businesses existing in harmony.”

While it’s painful to be on the receiving end of criticism, Deco Memes’ critiques are born from a love of San Antonio, Perez said. He sees the city’s potential and wants to champion a new generation of bootstrapping small business owners whose fresh ideas, brash energy and can-do optimism can challenge the status quo.

“Anyone who loves SA, we’ve been in eras where it felt like things were changing, where things were getting better and where we finally won’t compare ourselves to other cities and we can be at peace,” he said. “We are closer to that, but we still need a few changes of mindset. There’s still so much opportunity in San Antonio to have free thought and cool things.”

Instagram / @decomemesdistrict

Instagram / @decomemesdistrict

Developing

His Voice

San Antonio director’s short about the broken U.S. immigration system debuts at 2023 Sundance Film

Festival

BY KIKO MARTINEZ

Filmmaker Luis Fernando Puente was only 9 years old when his family moved to Texas from Mexico in 2002. His father had obtained a work visa and the rest of the family was approved to receive green cards. As a kid, Puente remembers the process being painless.

Fast-forward to 2021. Puente went through the same process again for his wife, who was also born in Mexico. This time, walking into an immigration services office felt different. Cold, indifferent, even frightening.

“We couldn’t afford a lawyer, so we were doing it all on our own,” Puente, 30, told the Current during a recent interview. “You start looking at one form and all the other adjacent forms that are needed and it becomes this big thing. It was a very stressful process.”

Puente chose to dramatize the true-life experience in his short film I Have No Tears, and I Must Cry. The short follows Maria Luisa (Alejandra Herrera) during her stressful interaction with an immigration officer (Cherie Julander) alongside her husband Jorge (Enoc Oteo) as she interviews for a green card.

I Have No Tears, and I Must Cry premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this week. Puente’s short was one of 64 selected for this year’s festival out of 10,981 submissions — the most in Sundance history.

Puente lives in Provo, Utah, where he graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in media arts. The 2011 graduate of Ronald Reagan High School hopes to one day return to San Antonio and make more movies.

How did you find out your film got accepted into Sundance?

It was a phone call at 9:30 on a Sunday night. I was coming back with a friend from a writer’s retreat. I was putting gas [in my vehicle] and got a call from a random number. So, I answered it and they said, “Hi, I’m so and so from the Sundance Institute.” My friend immediately pulled his phone out and started recording. I was speechless. The first question you have in your mind is like, “Is this for real?” And then you pinch yourself to make sure that it’s not a dream.

What’s your earliest movie memory?

I remember my dad taking us to buy The Empire Strikes Back on VHS [circa the mid90s]. I must have been around 3 years old. This was back in Mexico. We didn’t have a TV, so we went to my grandparents’ house to watch it. I was just so impressed. I also grew up watching a lot of Steven Spielberg films. I was watching them at a very early age. So, that’s the kind of language I was exposed to early on.

Was the immigration officer as cold in real life as the one in your film?

Yeah, for us that happened the moment we challenged him when something he said didn’t sound correct. It was like, “Oh, you’re challenging me? I’m the authority here.” So, it was like he was in business mode and very cold. I didn’t want to vilify the person too much, but it’s something I wanted to capture. There is a power dynamic to it. Even if you know you’re right, you think, “Is fighting back going to hurt me in the long run?” I mean, this person has the power to issue a deportation right there.

Who inspires your filmmaking today?

Well, it wasn’t until late in high school and in college that I started to develop a bigger palate [for] filmmaking and started being influenced by other directors. I can’t really pinpoint one specific director, but I can point

to classic ones like [Andrei] Tarkovsky and [Martin] Scorsese and [Francis Ford] Coppola. I’m at an early point in my career where I’m still developing my own voice, my own style, my own everything. So, I feel like I’m just grabbing from everywhere and then seeing what sticks.

Do you have any plans to move back to San Antonio?

I want to go back to live there. For me, Utah has always felt like a pass by. A lot of my network is up here, but it’s not somewhere where I really want to grow roots. The stories and the themes that I want to tackle are all centered around Northern Mexico and Southern Texas. So, moving back is in the plans. Hopefully, my career can take me back there.

What do you hope people who see your short film take from it?

Empathy. People don’t realize what immigration entails. They don’t really know what that world looks like. The immigration system in the U.S. was developed in the late ’60s, and it hasn’t really changed much. That’s an issue because the world has changed so much. I hope they see that there is a human element to immigration. If nothing else, I hope people start asking questions and start a conversation about this broken system.

screens

Photo courtesy of Luis Fernando Puente

How Much is Enough?

State law prohibits serving intoxicated customers, but San Antonio service workers feel pressure to keep drinks flowing

BY NINA RANGEL

It’s time for you to go.”

For some in the service industry, tending bar is a dream job. Until it’s time to utter that phrase to an inebriated guest. Tending bar is perceived to be easier physically than waiting tables, and it can promise more face time with patrons and bigger tips. But, like any other job, bartending has its downsides — one of the biggest being cutting people off.

“I don’t want to bum anybody out. I want them to have a good time at our bars, but I also don’t want to get in trouble,” said Melanie Barrows, director of operations for San Antonio food truck parks Bésame and El Camino, both of which operate full bars. “We always have to be thinking about the possibility that this could be the drink that takes them over the edge. Because if something fucked up happens while I’m on duty, I could go to jail.”

That pressure feels especially high for Alamo City bartenders after the high-profile arrest of Councilman Clayton Perry and his subsequent driving-while-intoxicated charge. Earlier this month, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) launched a probe into Evil Olive, a Northeast San Antonio bar at which Perry allegedly had 14 drinks the night of the automobile crash that prompted the charges.

Under Texas law, if a bartender knowingly provides alcohol to an intoxicated customer, that server could face criminal charges and potentially open up an administrative case against their employer. Bartenders licensed by the TABC undergo training that makes the rules — and the stakes for violating them — abundantly clear.

Even so, bartenders who spoke to the Current on condition of anonymity said they face pressure from patrons to bend the rules and keep the party going. Those bar pros said they frequently suggest that guests slow down, switch to water or leave the establishment altogether, but those recommendations can be met with temper tantrums and impudence.

“I’m just trying to do my job like anybody else,” Barrows said. “I want you to have a good, but responsible, time. And that means

doing my part not to contribute to a situation where you kill yourself on the way home — or kill somebody else.”

The numbers suggest Barrows’ fears aren’t unwarranted.

According to data released last December by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 32 people in the United States die daily in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver. That’s one death every 45 minutes. The CDC also reports that Texans between the ages of 21 and 34 are responsible for the most alcohol-impaired driving deaths annually.

The same data also suggest that, despite the potentially deadly consequences, bars and restaurants are still overserving patrons.

The Current asked 11 San Antonio-area bartenders whether they have continued serving a patron who should have been cut off. Speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid legal problems, all said they had.

Novice and seasoned bartenders alike said they felt pressure from guests to continue serving, sometimes self-rationalizing to skirt the law. Several even shared excuses they’d made to themselves when they overserved a patron. Among those:

• “I feel bad for her. Her husband died and I really only see her smile and laugh after a

couple of hours here.”

• “He always tips his tab. It’s an easy $30.”

• “He’s never a bother. I worry when he leaves, but he never fucks with anyone.”

• “I want him to keep bringing his work friends here. They’re all in tech.”

• “She’s a public, political figure. Can I really say no?’”

While bartenders said that they adhere to the law, by and large, TABC officials caution that there can be repercussions in instances when they let patrons slide.

“Bartenders … are the first line of defense when it comes to preventing needless tragedies such as alcohol-related injury or loss of life,” TABC Spokesman Chris Porter told the Current. “We’re fortunate that the vast majority of bartenders and servers take this responsibility seriously, even when customers may not understand or appreciate the servers’ role in keeping the public safe.”

Perhaps it’s also time for customers to recognize that they play a part in that defense as well.

San Antonio bartenders said it’s vital for patrons to remember that they’re not being cut off out of spite but out of legitimate concern for public safety.

Trust us on this one: pay your tab and call a ride home.

bogdanhoda / shutterstock.com

The retiring owners of longtime Boerne eatery Little Gretel are looking for a new operator to take over their Cibolo Creek-facing spot. 518 River Road, (830) 331-1368, littlegretel.com.

Officials with Utah-based Beans & Brews Coffee House said the chain will open a total of 40 new stores in San Antonio and Austin starting this year.

Smoke BBQ’s sprawling downtown location will host a Friday, Jan. 27 Cowboy Breakfast-style event called Kegs & Eggs, which will include free tacos and live music. Doors open at 7:30 a.m. and tunes start at 8:30 a.m. 501 E. Crockett, (210) 2539919, smokedowntown.com.

Locally owned mobile kitchen Guerito’s Red Tacos will expand its brand with a brick-andmortar West Side location in coming months. 8701 Farm to Market Road 1560, (210) 612-2805, gueritosredtacos.com.

Camp Hot Wells will open soon on San Antonio’s Mission Reach, offering mineral-bath foot soaking, private bathing and cold adult beverages near the site of the Hot Wells Hotel ruins. 5423 Hot Wells Way, (210) 922-1927, camphotwells.com.

Clear Light Coffee Co. will open a second location. The new Castle Hills spot will serve wine and small bites alongside its caffeinated offerings. 12656 West Avenue, Bldg. 3, clearlight.coffee.

Bowling and entertainment center Pinstack will open a second San Antonio location near the Rim, making the Alamo City the first Texas metroplex to have two Pinstacks. 742 NW Loop 410 Suite 201, (726) 999-2800, pinstackbowl.com.

San Antonio-based craft-beer bar Stout House is planning two new locations on the far West Side this spring, both situated just south of Government Canyon State Park. Multiple locations, stouthousesa.com.

Curry Boys BBQ will be featured on an episode of grilling guru Steven Raichlen’s forthcoming PBS show Planet BBQ, just ahead of the restaurant’s move to larger digs across the street. 2334 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 320-0555, curryboysbbq.com.

OPENINGS

Italian eatery Piatti has reopened its Quarry Market location after a five-month renovation. A new retail addition planned for the site, Piatti Provisions, will sell specialty pasta, gourmet meal kits, and Italian wines and spirits. 255 E. Basse Road, Suite 500, (210) 832-0300, sanantonio. piatti.com.

Missouri-based Classic Rock Coffee Co. — known for slinging coffee drinks and smoothies in a vibrant, music-inspired atmosphere — has opened its first San Antonio store on the far North Side. 15614 Huebner Road, Suite 118, classicrockcoffeesa. com.

As of press time, San Antonio comfort-food landmark Josephine Street was scheduled to reopen Monday, Jan. 23 after being closed for maintenance and a facelift. 400 E. Josephine St., (210) 224-6169, josephinestreet.com.

Pearl-area seafood spot Go Fish Market is now open, offering an extensive wine list, unexpected takes on tuna sandos, fish and chips and more. 125 W. Grayson St., (210) 542-6631, gofishmkt.com.

REVAMPED PATIO • SPEAKEASY VIBES

Scratch Made

Ahead of San Antonio show, Incubus’ Chris Kilmore discusses the band’s growth beyond nu-metal

BY L. KENT WOLGAMOTT

Soundchecks are generally just part of a band’s daily routine — get to the venue, play a few songs to dial in the sound, then get out until the show hours later.

But that’s not the case for Incubus, which is performing at San Antonio’s Tech Port Center + Arena on Thursday, Feb. 2.

“A lot of new music ideas that we have actually come from soundchecks when we’re on tour,” said turntablist and keyboardist Chris Kilmore in a recent phone interview. “There was a period of time where all we did was tour, almost 10 years straight. We didn’t really have much time other than when we stepped off the tour bus to write a record real quick…”

He continued: “So, over the years, once we get our soundcheck kind of straight on stage, we just start jamming and we always record.

So, after soundcheck, we might say, ‘Oh, that was a cool idea’ and go back and revisit it and then work on it for a couple days. The process of writing songs for us, that’s kind of what it is. It’s just a rough idea until it sparks an idea with somebody else. And then it starts going around the rest of the guys and before long it whips up into a song.”

As a result, Kilmore expects the veteran alternative rockers will have new material to work on this year. After all, they spent plenty of time on the road in 2022.

Getting kicked off the road by COVID was a shock to the system for Incubus, whose bread and butter is touring, year after year after year.

“It felt like somebody just slammed the brakes on,” Kilmore said. “We’re riding on this really cool tour bus, and somebody just slams the brake on and says, ‘OK, you’re done.

Stop, get out.’ And we’re in the middle of the desert or something, there’s no direction. What can we do?”

What Kilmore did for the past couple years was to work at the keyboards, which he picked up later in life, learn some more music theory and, of course, further the turntable skills and sounds he’s been making since he was a pre-teen growing up in Pennsylvania.

“I saw Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince when I was young and Jazzy Jeff blew my mind,” Kilmore said. “At that moment, I was like, ‘Man, I want to try to do that.’”

He started DJing at 13 and continued through high school and college in Washington D.C. before he moved to Los Angeles and became part of the Jedi Knights DJ crew.

“We would link all of our turntables together,” he said. “We’d make beats and things like that live together. While we’re scratching, and it kind of [became], ‘We’re a band — you’re playing the bass on a turntable. I’ve got a kick drum. This guy’s got a high-hat and snare,’ and so on. I’m like, we’re a band. That kind of opened up my mind.”

That epiphany led to invitations to join rock bands, who were adding DJs to the sound mix in the “nu-metal” movement. Eventually, an invitation came from Incubus,

Reminder: Although live events have returned, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Check with venues to make sure scheduled events are still happening, and please follow all health and safety guidelines.

Brantley Gutierrez

which was looking for a replacement for Gavin Koppel.

Joining Incubus for its 1998 tour behind the album S.C.I.E.N.C.E., Kilmore went into the studio with the band to create Make Yourself, a 1999 double-platinum breakthrough album that yanked the band out of the nu-metal genre and into the rock mainstream.

“I feel like just having my personality and the fact that I’m the DJ kind of pulled us out of that a little bit,” Kilmore said. “There was a point there where I felt like a DJ in a rock band was really cliche. Every band out there was trying to come up with a DJ. But I felt like I was always a little different than those guys.”

In large part, that difference was rooted in Kilmore’s musical approach, which aimed at incorporating the turntables almost like another instrument in the group.

“I always felt like when you scratch on top of music, regardless of what genre it is, it’s equivalent to a guitar solo,” he said. “It sticks out. It’s loud. It’s hard to sing over it or do other rhythmic things over top of it without that [scratching] being the focal point. So, I was always conscious of that.

“So, there’s a bunch of solos and things like that, but there’s a lot of other stuff going on that are blended in,” Kilmore added. “That was actually the hardest thing to achieve with this band — how do I get into this and not stick out and blend in just like everybody else is blending in? I think through that process, it was like, ‘OK, now our sound is developing, and our sound is getting bigger and we’re not a nu-metal band.’”

That change wasn’t just evident musically. It could be seen in the Incubus audience, which Kilmore initially saw on the S.C.I.E.N.C.E. tour.

“Back then, it was all guys,” he said. “It was the mosh pits. It was guys shaking the barricade and everything like that. And then, we wrote Make Yourself,

and ‘Pardon Me’ came out and you started seeing a little bit more girls. As that album went on, and the singles came out, ‘Stellar’ came out and now that front row was all girls, with those guys behind them. And then a crowd developed.”

That audience has stayed with the band through its hit-making years, with its 2000s albums Morning View, A Crow Left of the Murder... and Light Grenades, and as Incubus has entered its third decade as a band.

Kilmore, who had a bout with COVID last June — “It took me out for a little bit, it’s definitely the sickest I’ve ever been,” he said — missed the band’s rehearsals and had to play a pair of shows in Spain cold.

“It’s really funny how mentally you forget things,” he said. “You’re like, ‘Oh, what song is this or what setting is that?’ Once you get into it and don’t think about what you have to do, it’s almost like muscle memory. Your body just takes over and it’s like, ‘This is how you do it.’”

Kilmore’s muscle memory, however, can’t become rote repetition on tour. Unlike the majority of artists, Incubus plays different songs every show.

“We usually have a structure, obviously,” he said. “It’s a coordinated event kind of thing. It’s not just us up there jamming. We’ve got sound guys and lighting guys all trying to do their jobs as well. So, we usually keep a good outline, how we’re going to start, maybe a middle section and then switch out some songs in between.”

As a band, Incubus remains flexible, Kilmore said.

“Obviously, we’ve been around for so long, we have so many songs we could play, we can throw in audibles as often as we like. We try to keep it fresh every night and do our thing.”

Sold out, 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, Tech Port Center + Arena, 3331 General Hudnell Drive, (210) 600-3699, techportcenter.com.

critics’ picks

Thursday, Jan. 26

Minimal Disturbance with Jack White & Ron Stabinsky, T Putnam Hill, Ethan Campa

Saxophonist Jack Wright is one of the American giants of free improvisation, screeching, burbling and groaning with his instrument in ways Adolphe Sax likely never imagened. For this performance, the 80-year-old Philadelphian is joined by keyboardist Ron Stabinsky in the duo Minimal Disturbance. The show’s openers promise to offer similarly creative sonic approaches, specializing in “shifting auditory environments” and “dense skronk,” respectively, according to press materials. In other words, leave your narrowminded musical preconceptions at home. $10 suggested donation, 7 p.m., Fl!ght Gallery, 112R Blue Star, (210) 872-2586, facebook.com/flightSA. — Sanford Nowlin

Friday, Jan. 27

A Flock of Seagulls, Strangelove

Few bands evoke memories of a time period in the way A Flock of Seagulls does the early 1980s. From lead singer Mike Score’s iconic hairdo to the distinctive blend of synthesizers on the runaway hit “I Ran (So Far Away),” the group helped define the new wave era. With Score, who formed the band in 1979, as its only remaining original member, A Flock of Seagulls carries that banner with pride. Expect a retro-minded evening that includes the big hit along with crowd favorites such as “Space Age Love Song” and “Wishing (If I Had A Photograph of You).” Opening act Strangelove is a Depeche Mode tribute band. $35-$40, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — Danny Cervantes

Friday,

Jan. 27 and Saturday, Jan. 28

Super Bitfest 2.0

Video game-themed music festival Super Bitfest is returning to San Antonio for its second iteration. At least, that’s what the “2.0” in its name suggests. The event gathers together a bill of a dozen or more bands, rappers and musicians — among them out-of-towners Triforce Quartet and Mega Ran along with local favorites Bitforce and Bexar Brass — whose music celebrates video games. As could be expected at such an event, indie game developers, artists and vendors will round things out. $19.99-$34.99, 6 p.m. Friday, all day Saturday, Shrine Auditorium, 901 N. Loop 1604 West, (210) 496-6334, superbitfest.com. — Mike McMahan

Saturday, Jan. 28

Supercrush, Pile of Love

Supercrush represented a musical shift for frontman Mark Palm, who formed the band in 2013 following his departure from Modern Charms. While Palm boasts a lengthy resume in metal, hardcore and punk, Supercrush explores power pop. The band’s work is reminiscent of the guitar-driven sounds of ’90 alt-rockers Matthew Sweet and Weezer, although with distinctively optimistic lyrics. Melody Maker, an EP released last summer, is the group’s most recent effort. Los Angeles indie-rock outfit Pile of Love offer support with a quirky blend of pop-rock and shoegaze. $14, 7 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — DC

Sunday, Jan. 29

Eyehategod, Discreet, Inner Self, Noisy Neighbors, B

BitForce

The doomy, groovy and sludgy music of New Orleans’ Eyehategod evokes the kind of filth crust punks wish they embodied. Detuned riffs, guitar feedback and tortured vocals encapsulate the band’s misanthropic worldview that’s at once Southern-sounding and clearly molded by life under the region’s oppressive culture. Under all its grime, Eyehategod also shows off a bluesy underbelly that helps explain why the long-running band continues to command attention. $20, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — Brianna Espinoza

Tuesday, Jan. 31

New Found Glory

Over time, these Florida-based pop-punkers have evolved into more of an alt-rock band. Even so, the group’s sound remains planted in the late ’90s. Expect plenty of nasal vocals, singalongs and nostalgia. $37-$77, 8 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — BE

Thursday, Feb. 2

Margins, Greybloom, Gleaming Streets, Aztec Eagles, Short Shorts

Starting with a sound that evokes post-hardcore greats Jawbox, Margins — not to be confused with the Aussie post-rock band of the same name — rolls emo stylings into the mix. Post-emo? You tell us. The band’s 2022 EP Ghosts in the Walls provides an intro to the mix of anthemic hooks and heart-on-sleeve lyrics that defines Margins’ sound. $10-$15, 7:15 p.m., The Starlighter, 1910 Fredericksburg Road, thestarlighter.com. — MM

Morat

Colombian pop-rock band Morat has been touring the U.S. since 2019, helping define the sound of Latin music outside of reggaeton and Latin trap. Morat’s rousing choruses and use of instruments including the banjo caught the ear of Mexican songstress Paulina Rubio, who recorded the song “Mi Nuevo Vicio” with the quartet in 2015. Morat’s been winning over listeners ever since. The show’s steep price reflects that only resale tickets remain available. $302 and up, 8:30 p.m., Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St.

Mary’s, (210) 812-4355, theaztectheatre.com. — Marco Aquino

Vinyl Williams

The brainchild of LA-based multimedia artist and musician Lionel Williams, Vinyl Williams has released six albums that are heavy on layered synths, analog noise and experimental sounds. $12$15, 7 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx. com. — MA

Sex Mex

San Antonio outfit Sex Mex started releasing music in 2021, and its mix of post-punk and garage rock has since become a staple along the St. Mary’s Strip and in hole-in-the-wall venues in other parts of town. Frenetic guitar playing and distorted vocals evoke punk pioneers such as the Stooges and Stiff Little Fingers, only the band’s approach also includes synths and is glazed in a modern pop bounciness. Free, 9 p.m., Hi-Tones, 621 E. Dewey Place, instagram.com/hitones_sa. — Dalia Gulca

Retro Cowgirl

San Antonio-based Retro Cowgirl has the makeup of a classic five-piece rock ensemble — lead singer, two guitarists, bassist and drummer — except with more razzle-dazzle. Since its 2021 formation, the band has become known for high-concept shows complete with themes and decked-out stages — case-in-point: October’s Quentin Tarantino-themed show at the Starlighter. Syrupy, bluesy vocals sidle up against hard rock-tinged guitar riffs in Retro Cowgirl’s music. $10-$15, 6 p.m., Brick at Bluestar, 108 Blue Star, (210) 262-8653, brickatbluestar.com. — DG

Saturday, Feb. 4

D.R.U.G.S., Varials, Callous Daoboys, 156/Silence

This Michigan group’s mouthful of a name — Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows — was clearly created so it could go by the easier, more entertaining acronym D.R.U.G.S. Almost a supergroup of post-hardcore musicians, D.R.U.G.S. boasts a high-profile member in ex-Chiodos vocalist Craig Owens, who fronts the band. $25-$27, 7 p.m., The Rock Box, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 772-1443, therockboxsa.com. — BE

Courtesy Photo / BitForce