Bathroom bill already seen costing S.A.

Three groups — with meetings estimated to bring $3.1 million in total spending — no longer are considering the Alamo City for their events because of a bill prohibiting transgender Texans from using bathrooms tied to their gender identity, said Richard Oliver, spokesman for Visit San Antonio, the former Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Another eight conventions already booked for upcoming events in San Antonio have threatened to pull out should the legislation pass, taking with them a projected $19.9 million economic impact that includes spending by convention-goers on area hotel rooms, meals and attractions, he said.

Oliver declined to name the conventions that passed over San Antonio or the gatherings that plan to uproot themselves if state lawmakers pass the bill, but said convention organizers regularly express concern about the legislation.

“Everyone has their radars up regarding this issue,” Oliver said.

Civil rights groups and U.S. business leaders see Senate Bill 6 as discriminatory and a threat to civil rights. The proposed law would require trans-gender men and women to use bathrooms corresponding with their birth sex in public buildings. It would withhold state funding from local governments that try to circumvent the state law.

The bill’s opponents fear businesses and conventions would pull out from the state as they did when North Carolina lawmakers passed a similar law last year, costing that state as much as $600 million, according to some estimates.

The NAACP chose San Antonio for its 2018 annual convention — rejecting a bid from Charlotte after former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed the Tar Heel State’s bathroom bill into law. The gathering is projected to bring 10,000 visitors and generate an economic impact of $10 million.

Leon Russell, vice chairman of NAACP’s board of directors, said the organization may have to revisit the decision if Senate Bill 6 becomes law.

“It says to people, ‘We openly discriminate and we don’t mind being recognized for openly discriminating,’ ” Russell said. “That’s not somewhere a lot of people want to come to.”

The NCAA relocated seven championship games scheduled this year from North Carolina to other states. Last April, the organization’s board of governors adopted standards requiring host cities to “demonstrate how they will provide an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination.”

Local leaders see the moves as an indication the NCAA could pull its Final Four championship from San Antonio in 2018, costing area hotels, restaurants and attractions an estimated $75 million in revenue.

Losing the Final Four championship or NAACP convention would deprive San Antonio of visibility needed to boost the city’s $13.6 billion-a-year tourism industry, Oliver said.

“You lose an event like that and the incredible economic value that that brings to a community, but you also lose … the fact that you are a spotlight city in a spotlight moment,” Oliver said.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has said the bill is one of his top priorities for the current legislative session, dismissing claims it would hurt the economy. Patrick slammed a study by the Texas Association of Business projecting the state would lose up to $8.5 billion in economic activity should the bill pass after PolitiFact Texas gave the study a “mostly false” rating.

“Fear-mongering is what that report is about,” Patrick said at a news conference in February. “There is no evidence whatsoever that the passage of Senate Bill 6 will have any economic impact in Texas.”

When asked about the conventions that passed over San Antonio because of the legislation, Patrick’s spokesman Alejandro Garcia said the NFL did not move Super Bowl LI from Houston despite voters’ rejection of an equal rights ordinance in 2015. NFL owners awarded Super Bowl LI to Houston in May 2013.

“Businesses didn’t stop moving to Houston, and last month they celebrated what many believe is the most successful Super Bowl in history,” Garcia said in a statement.

After the Super Bowl, the NFL warned that the league would consider moving future championship games elsewhere if the law passed.

The NBA moved its All-Star Game from Charlotte after McCrory signed the North Carolina law.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in February the association is keeping an eye on whether states, including Texas, discriminate against transgender people when considering locations for future championships.

Global investors also could pull investments from the state.

A group with more than $11 trillion in assets in Texas — led by New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer and Matthew Patsky, CEO of Trillium Assets Management — urged Patrick, Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Joe Straus not to pass the bill in a letter last month. jfechter@express-news.net