Texas attorney general sues city of Austin over New Year’s Covid dining limits

State and city have gone back and forth over who controls pandemic response

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton is suing the city of Austin after it sought to put a four-day limit on restaurant dining over New Year’s weekend.

Austin mayor Steve Adler and Travis County judge Any Brown introduced the temporary restrictions, which limits restaurants to drive-through, curbside, takeout, and delivery service between 10:30pm and 6am between Thursday and Sunday, after Texas reported a record number of coronavirus cases and hospitalisations.

“Mayor Adler and Judge Brown do not have the authority to flout [Governor Greg Abbott’s] executive orders by shutting down businesses in Travis County and our state’s capital city,” Mr Paxton said in a statement on Wednesday. 

“The fact that these two local leaders released their orders at night and on the eve of a major holiday shows how much contempt they have for Texans and local businesses."

The lawsuit seeks a temporary injunction and temporary restraining order against the new rules.

Texas governor Greg Abbott also criticised the new rules.

“This shutdown order by Austin isn't allowed. Period,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “My executive order stops cities like Austin from arbitrarily shutting down businesses. The city has a responsibility to enforce existing orders, not make new ones.”

Mr Adler said he put the restrictions in place after consulting with medical experts and other frontline workers because Austin was in “critical” condition.

“We are now facing our most dangerous surge prospects,” he said at the time.

Judge Brown, meanwhile, called the order “the most narrowly tailored thing we could think of” to limit coronavirus spreading over the normally busy holiday weekend.

Reacting to the lawsuit, Mr Adler said the state was not doing enough. 

“If the state is not going to act, then communities have to be able to act to protect themselves. Tomorrow, that’s going to be the issue that’s in front of the court,” Mr Adler said on a Wednesday livestream. 

“Even if the court rules tomorrow that everyone has a right under the governor’s orders to go out and take your mask off when you are around other people at a restaurant on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, that doesn’t mean that you have to do it. 

"We are asking everyone in this community to really think hard about what they are doing, about what they can do to contribute during this peak time.”

Medical authorities in Austin have warned more get togethers could be dangerous.

“The situation is critical,” Dr Mark Escott, interim Austin-Travis County health authority, said in a statement accompanying the changes. 

“We are now experiencing uncontrolled widespread community transmission of Covid-19, particularly in circumstances where masking and distancing are not possible, making bars and similar establishments extremely concerning over this holiday weekend.”

Like much of the country, cases have been surging in Texas since autumn to higher levels than any previous time. 

According to state data, on 31 December, there were more than 14,000 new cases, and more than 100 people have died a day since November.