By Nicole Hensley and Julian Gill STAFF WRITERS
More than 250 social distancing complaints were lodged with the city of Houston over Memorial Day weekend, including concerns regarding a packed pool party at a Midtown club.
Video recorded Saturday afternoon at Clé Houston showed more than 100 people crammed around the swimming pool without masks. Fire officials are estimating that the crowd exceeded the capacity limit mandated when Gov. Greg Abbott allowed bars and clubs to reopen Friday.
“Just from the picture, it was more than 25 percent capacity,” fire Chief Sam Peña said.
The crowded pool party at 2301 Main St. garnered at least one 311 complaint, Peña said, and fire investigators planned to check the venue later for compliance. Hours after the pool party ended, the club canceled an event scheduled for Sunday afternoon, writing on Facebook that it was “due to public health concerns related to the Coronavirus pandemic.”
Fire officials found only two dozen or so people inside when they checked Sunday afternoon, during which time the open-air venue was threatened by rain.
According to property records, the club is owned by a limited-liability corporation tied to Oxberry Group, a Houston business owned by the brothers Shahin “Sean” and Pejman “PJ” Jamea. Neither could be reached Sunday for comment.
From 7 a.m. Friday to 7 a.m. Saturday, authorities received 137 complaints. Another 121 complaints were lodged for the same time from Saturday to Sunday, authorities said.
Mayor Sylvester Turner expressed disappointment after several people alerted him to the pool party photos.
“I started getting pictures from City Council members and others saying, ‘This is crazy,’ ” he said.
Turner then said the fire department would start enforcing the state’s order on capacity limits, either by asking for compliance or by closing down abusiness until social distancing is achieved. Before, fire marshals were focused on educating business owners and handing out masks as needed, Peña said.
Citations were not out of the realm of possibilities. Photos of shoulder-to-shoulder crowds could not be ignored, the mayor said.
Prior attempts to cite businesses when the state allowed restaurants to reopen in a limit capacity resulted in two lawsuits, officials said.
“We tried to enforce clubs who said they were operating as restaurants, in my opinion, trying to skirt the rules,” Peña said.
One example was Club Onyx, a downtown Houston strip club that won a temporary order from federal court to resume business as a full-service restaurant. The strippers, the club argued, were entertainment.
Another lawsuit was filed by the Sportsplex of Houston, according to the city.
Turner urged those who attended the pool party and other packed clubs to go to a drive-thru testing site when they open Tuesday as a precaution, stressing that any of the attendees could have been asymptomatic.
The Houston Professional Firefighters Association issued a statement late Sunday calling the decision to enforce social distancing “hypocrisy.”
“The mayor’s ill-conceived directive came without public health guidance or an order from the fire chief clarifying how inspectors and investigators in the field should respond when they confront understandably irate business owners, managers and customers,” according to a portion of the statement. “Based on recent incidents, we have no reason to believe the mayor will back up city employees forced into this impossible situation.”
Turner encouraged people to continue to report large crowds just as they would report acrime.
“I don’t call it snitching, I call it being responsible,” he said. nicole.hensley@chron.com julian.gill@chron.com