Councilman Edward Pollard launched a brand new costume code ordinance for nightclubs and bars, which coincides with a current uptick in anti-crime insurance policies from Mayor John Whitmire.
Houston nightlife has at all times been loud and a little bit unruly. However in 2025, it’s additionally changing into political. From a new ordinance requiring bars and eating places to submit their costume codes on the door to Mayor John Whitmire’s aggressive nightlife crime crackdown, the metropolis’s golf equipment and bars are discovering themselves on the heart of a battle over equity, public security, and who actually controls the tradition of an evening out.
In July, Councilman Edward Pollard, who represents District J, pushed by means of a first-of-its-kind ordinance requiring all native institutions to submit their costume codes on the door—a measure aimed squarely at Houston’s eating places and bars, the place costume guidelines have been murky. Pollard says the brand new regulation will assist forestall enterprise homeowners from utilizing costume codes as a instrument for discrimination.
The change comes after Pollard and metropolis controller Chris Hollins have been allegedly rejected from a Houston bar, with the unnamed enterprise pointing to Hollins’s footwear, a pair of tennis footwear, as the rationale for removing. Pollard stated throughout a July 21 council assembly that selectively enforced costume codes might be seen as discriminatory. Throughout the identical assembly, fellow councilmember Carolyn Evans-Shabazz cosponsored Pollard’s ordinance, explaining that African American males usually expertise discrimination by means of costume codes. Requiring posted signage of costume code necessities would offer readability, transparency, and equity to the town, Pollard stated in a press release to Houston Fashion Journal.
Costume codes have lengthy stirred controversy in Houston’s nightlife and eating scene. In October 2023, native lawyer Willie Powells filed a lawsuit in opposition to Put up Oak Resort for racial discrimination after Powells was denied entry to the lodge’s H Bar for sporting a baseball cap. The lodge was once more sued days later by one other plaintiff, Blessing Nwosu, who alleged that workers on the lodge’s Bloom & Bee restaurant informed her to cowl her shoulders, whereas different white patrons with uncovered shoulders have been left alone. The now-closed Turkey Leg Hut, a Black-owned fixture in Third Ward, sparked backlash in 2021 with its costume code banning “excessively revealing clothes,” obscene language, saggy garments, or “home apparel,” like wave caps and du-rags—guidelines critics known as “anti-Black.”
Houstonian Valeria Alvarado, whose tweets concerning the metropolis’s nightlife made rounds in native circles, says Pollard’s new ordinance on costume codes is a step in the appropriate path. “For the arbitrary costume codes, it actually began to really feel like a sport of selecting [who’s] picked on for what they put on,” she says. In lots of instances, costume codes appeared to have racial undertones. Now, Alvarado says companies shall be compelled to look at their costume codes “and resolve if that’s one thing they wish to publicize and if they need to proceed doing it.”
“I feel [the ordinance] actually allowed us to have a mirror put in entrance of us and see the fact of what brown and Black folks take care of simply attempting to have a enjoyable evening out,” Alvarado says.
For bar proprietor Brett Loewenstein, proprietor of the Heights bar, Carte Blanche, posting a costume code isn’t nearly guidelines—it’s about readability and a instrument that may assist a enterprise create a selected atmosphere or buyer expertise. “I feel it is an important factor to have up as a result of it simply type of advantages everyone, for my part.” Posting signage and making costume code insurance policies clear may give prospects a “clear concept” of the expectations, which “alleviates the stresses of going out,” he provides.
It might additionally carry a brand new commonplace to Houston nightlife. In contrast to different main cities like New York or Chicago, the place golf equipment would possibly require excessive heels and enterprise informal put on, costume codes in Houston’s leisure and clubbing districts are sometimes identified to be extra laid-back, lax, and accepting of sneakers. Loewenstein, who plans to submit a costume code at Carte Blanche quickly, says costume code signage hasn’t been the norm right here, however golf equipment with stricter costume codes and door insurance policies do exist.
Whereas Pollard pushes for transparency, the mayor is doubling down on enforcement. Whitmire has ramped up his marketing campaign in opposition to nightlife-related crime and bettering high quality of life in close by neighborhoods, resulting in a spike in citations, inspections, and even membership closures. It raises the query: Has the membership turn out to be Houston’s latest political battleground?
Points surrounding the town’s polarizing nightlife have been simmering for ages, suffering from issues like discrimination, crime, and clashes with native neighborhoods. A few of the push for stricter regulation comes from residents, who declare that rowdy golf equipment and bars in particular neighborhoods have led to documented situations of litter, loud noises, and different disturbances of their communities. Others declare a rise in avenue takeovers by underground automotive golf equipment and reckless driving. To handle this, Whitmire, who has notably prioritized public security, has established an anti-crime unit throughout the Houston Police Division to observe nightlife and golf equipment and cut back associated crime and nuisances. Since launching HPD’s “Crime Safety Group Membership Unit” in July, the mayor has touted no less than 115 citations, 12 warnings, 13 inspections, 5 closures, and two arrests tied to nightlife spots, police say. His ride-alongs all through Emancipation Avenue and the Higher Heights neighborhood have earned reward from residents fed up with noise and sharp criticism from nightlife advocates who say the insurance policies disproportionately goal Black and brown folks. In December 2024, the mayor was scrutinized when he stated he wished to assist Washington Avenue membership homeowners get “barely clad younger women off the road.”
Whereas Pollard’s ordinance pushes for transparency, Whitmire’s method and “robust on crime” insurance policies have left some communities feeling alienated, significantly Black and brown individuals who frequent areas which can be present process a nightlife crackdown, Alvarado says. In distinction, different predominantly white neighborhoods with thriving nightlife tradition, just like the Heights, haven’t been held to the identical requirements, she says.
The mayor’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to Houstonia’s request for touch upon Whitmire’s current nightlife-related insurance policies.
Loewenstein says Carte Blanche has but to have any run-ins with HPD’s Membership Unit. “I’m not as acquainted as a result of I hadn’t personally handled this division or this group,” Loewenstein says. Nonetheless, he believes the nightlife scene is ever-evolving and requires enter from trade professionals, prospects, and policymakers. His hope is that the nightlife trade and the town can work collectively to create change and curb crime.
“As a bar proprietor, you don’t need bother,” Loewenstein says. “You need your prospects to really feel very protected [and welcomed].”
