At one Austin eatery, dog-owners deputized

Cowed by the enforcement of a state health rule that bars animals from restaurants, several dog-friendly Austin eateries have recently closed their patios to canines.

But beginning a week ago, in a peculiarly Texas version of civil disobedience, a restaurant owner decided to deputize his customers as members of a kind of diner posse to get around the rule.

Fred Nelson, the owner of Freddie's Place on South First Street, pays dog-owner customers a penny apiece and issues them "badges" — stickers that read "Freddie's Official Security Officer." In Nelson's view, that satisfies a section of the state restaurant code that allows "patrol dogs accompanying police or security officers in offices and dining, sales, and storage areas."

A state restaurant code bars live animals from a restaurant's premises, and inspectors in Travis County apparently decided that included pooches on the patio.

No guns or uniforms are distributed at Freddie's, and it's not clear just what the dogs or the customers would protect, but when a Saturday afternoon brings a dozen dogs puppying around, running randomly in circles or lying quietly beneath their owners' tables, Freddie's does indeed seem one of the most fortified restaurants in the state.

"Apparently it is OK to have a grackle crap in your food but not OK to have your pooch alongside your picnic table," reads a defiant flier at Freddie's Place that employs some surefire South Austin bubba logic.

Nelson said that twice in the past month, health department inspectors had warned him that dogs would no longer be permitted on the restaurant's spacious dirt patio.

Bob Flocke, a spokesman for the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department, suggested that the Freddie's Place strategy might not hold up.

"The test would be if a reasonable person would believe these are security dogs," he said.

Several restaurants said they have recently barred dogs from their patios after visits from health inspectors.

"Initially we were dog-friendly," said Crystal Hoffman, the manager of the Austin Java Company on Barton Springs Road. "But then the health department said no dice."

Defiance was too risky, she said. "Dogs are a pretty big score on the restaurant test."

Flocke said a violation involving dogs results in the loss of a "critical point" in an inspection. Critical points are reserved for violations that may lead to disease transmission, but losing one point doesn't automatically lead to a failing score on its own.

Nearly three weeks ago, Mozart's on Lake Austin Boulevard said it got a warning, too.

"It's kinda crazy to try to control dogs out there," said Jack Ranstrom, the general manager of the cafe, which has a wide deck overlooking Lake Austin.

"I asked the (health inspector), kind of sarcastically, 'What about the birds?' And he literally said, 'You can't have those, either.' "

Some restaurants are saying they have never been approached by the health department on this point before, but Flocke said the county's interpretation of the state rule had not changed recently.

"There's no crackdown, there's no different enforcement," he said.

Restaurant proprietors said the enforcement of the rule made for some sticky situations with customers.

"You think smokers are bad when you tell them they can't smoke," Ranstrom said, "There's nothing worse than not being with your dog. It just gets awkward when you tell them (the dog can't be there). They don't sympathize with the plight of restaurant owners."

While sipping a Diet Coke on the porch of his restaurant last week, Nelson admitted he backed into his strategy.

"Initially my reaction was to ignore (the health inspectors)," he said, chuckling. "Then I thought, hell, I can't do that."

That's when he decided to saddle up the dogs.