Bar where UT students dodged campus carry changes gun policies

Mark Sheridan, a graduate student in the English Department, holds office hours for his students at the Cactus Cafe, a bar on campus where guns are barred from entry. Sheridan, who teacher the Rhetoric of US Exceptionalism to underclassmen, does not have a private office where he can prevent students with guns from entry. Several faculty and staff have hit on the idea, holding meetings and office hours in locations where 51% or more of sales are liquor which make then gun-free zones under a statewide mandate. less Mark Sheridan, a graduate student in the English Department, holds office hours for his students at the Cactus Cafe, a bar on campus where guns are barred from entry. Sheridan, who teacher the Rhetoric of US ... more Photo: Julia Robinson, For The Chronicle Photo: Julia Robinson, For The Chronicle Image 1 of / 36 Caption Close Bar where UT students dodged campus carry changes gun policies 1 / 36 Back to Gallery

Some University of Texas at Austin graduate students have been holding office hours in a campus bar called the Cactus Café since August, when the state’s campus carry law allowed concealed handguns to be carried nearly everywhere on Texas university campuses.

It was a way to hold academic meetings in a gun-free space, because it's illegal to bring a concealed handgun into a venue that primarily serves alcohol.

But UT realized last week that the Cactus Café’s percentage of revenue from liquor – which determines the legality of carrying a concealed weapon – was miscalculated. The establishment’s liquor license is for the entire Texas Union building, which also hosts Wendy’s, Starbucks, Quiznos and other restaurants. And the majority of that revenue does not come from alcohol, spokesman J.B. Bird said.

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“It was an innocent mistake,” Bird said. A sign forbidding concealed handguns has been replaced and now permits license holders to carry a concealed handgun in the bar, he said.

It appears that people on campus are unaware of the change. A social media account representing the bar posted the incorrect policy as recently as Tuesday morning. At least one graduate student who holds office hours in the bar said she had not heard of any policy shift.

“There are plenty of gun-free zones around campus and I’ll now hold my office hours in one of those,” said Mark Sheridan, another student who’s held office hours in the bar, in an email. “We all recognize firearms and booze are a bad mix. That logic doesn’t change just because the bar is in a larger complex.”

>>>Scroll through the gallery above to see some common questions about the campus carry law