Bar Fight in the Village: Hans’ Bier Haus Fights for Its License

Thought Judge Hancock’s January restraining order had quieted the ongoing feud between residents of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condo tower and the little Rice Village bar next door, Hans’ Bier Haus? Well, maybe a little. But both sides pulled out their best complaints for yesterday’s hearing at commissioners’ court, where Robinhood residents are protesting the renewal of the partly open-air bar’s beer and wine license. While January’s court order appears to have quelled the beer-can throwing, the band-dousing, and the collar-grabbing, lawyers for the bar claim that condo residents have been intimidating bar patrons by putting them under surveillance: “They installed high tech videotape and audiotape recording and surveillance microphones and cameras and filmed virtually everything that occurred on the premises of Hans Bier Haus,” bar piano player and attorney Ken Ward complained to the court. Sure, but how else are they gonna have highlights to show in court? The hearing will continue on Thursday.

Video: Jason Witmer, Houston Chronicle

26 Comment

  • Hans’ Bier Haus has been part of the community for years, celebrating our rugby victories with pride and mourning our losses as we cry into our beers. This pathetic condo and its owners knew it was being built right next to a bar. Its not as if Hans’ was hiding the fact that it is often open until 2.
    What has 2520 Robinhood contributed? Nothing!
    Did 2520 Robinhood offer fair warning to Hans’ and the rest of the community? Never!
    2520 Robinhood? Hah. Steal from the poor and give to the rich indeed.

  • i’m lost, how do the condo’s have any right to protest the bar’s liquor license anyhow?

    is there criminal negligence such as minors drinking and happy endings being offered in the back or something?

  • Selfish condo owners!

  • Stop the Ashby Highrise!!

  • Oh yeah! Great entertainment. I was wondering when the Bier Haus imbroglio would appear again. Perhaps covering the hearing would be an assignment for one of the Swamplot reporter-writers?

  • What has 2520 Robinhood contributed? Nothing!
    _________________________________

    No doubt they will claim as some in Southampton did that they serve on our boards, and contribute generously to our charities, and make our community a better community for all. And therefore, should be allowed to dictate what is allowed and not allowed in their neighborhoods. The City Charter and TABC licensing standards, which obviously Han Bier Haus has been complying with all these years, be damned.

    Southampton Syndrome. Spreading like a plague. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

    Since when, by the way, does Commissioners Court tell TABC what can and cannot be licensed?

    Best way to fight Southampton Syndrome is to stop supporting those who lend credence to those sufering from it. Stop sending the checks to the organizations that have these spoiled brats on their boards. Let them write the checks themselves. Boycott their businesses. Go buy your own tacky yellow signs and put them in your front yards.

    “Stop ‘Stop Ashby!'”

  • Oh and go buy a beer at Hans’ Beer Haus and help fight the good fight!

    Just don’t toss the beer bottle over the wall. But feel free to shoot the bird at the cameras!

  • Sounds like we’ve decided where to have a Swamplot happy hour…

  • Sounds like we’ve decided where to have a Swamplot happy hour…

    ___________________

    Swamplot becomes Swamplush…

  • I wonder how the bar patrons would feel if when they went home and tried to sleep or just be at piece, loud continuous noises and all the other stuff that an unruly crowd does kept them from sleeping or just being at piece. I think they might complain also.

  • I wonder how the bar patrons would feel if when they went home and tried to sleep or just be at piece, loud continuous noises and all the other stuff that an unruly crowd does kept them from sleeping or just being at piece. I think they might complain also.

    ______________________

    Maybe the developer of 2520 Robinhood should have considered that when they decided to build a hirise in the Village that is surrounded by bars. All of them noisy.

    The people who bought condos there certainly should have considered it.

    But, again, Southampton Syndrome.

    Which bar will they target next if they manage to get Hans’Bier Haus closed?

  • Let there be PIECE!! roflmao

  • First of all, GB, what piece are you looking for, a piece of crap? Second, 2520 Robinhood is in the middle of a large city. Hans was there before it was built. And people buying those condos should have seen it before they bought. If you want peace(or piece as you so stupidly wrote), move to the burbs.

  • If you want peace(or piece as you so stupidly wrote), move to the burbs.
    ______________________

    And take Southampton, and the Tangley Terror of West U with their equally tacky signs, with you…

  • I suggest a second bar on the other side of West U’s original tower of terror? :)

    I second, Swamplot’s HH location!

  • GB:

    I wouldn’t be stupid enough to buy a house next to a beer garden. That’s how I sleep at night.

  • I went to Houston to visit a friend and Hans Bier Haus is where we went to enjoy a beer and what a fabulous place it was! Everyone in the bar was friendly and it was such a chill place! Loved it! While I was there, I noticed signs posted about the feud and the first thing I thought of was “why would you move in next door to a bar if you were going to bitch about it?”
    So to those who live in the highrise, you did this to yourselves. Don’t live next to a bar if you want peace and quiet!! It’s a BAR! Bars are not always quiet! And don’t act like you all don’t ever go to a bar and have some fun at times! It just happens you live next door to a place where you have to hear it on a daily basis….again, that’s your fault!

  • Went to Hans for the first time with some friends Tuesday night. Great place in every respect. Happy to support this place in its fight against the condoistas.

  • Yeah, um. Hans won. They get to keep the beer and wine license. I did find it quite disturbing that 40 pounds of rotten meat was dumped in the private alley between the fence and the bar patio by the sore losers. Some people just don’t deserve to have fingers.
    I hope that the bar gets louder and another one moves in on the other side of your building. I hope you never get a good night of sleep.

  • I did find it quite disturbing that 40 pounds of rotten meat was dumped in the private alley between the fence and the bar patio by the sore losers.
    __________________________

    Hope someone checked the meat. Might have been part of the latest victim of 2520’s most famous, or should that be infamous, homeowner.

  • I just saw the story about the rotting meat on the channel 13 news. So of course someone beat me here!

    Rotting meat left outside bar in middle of battle with condo

  • Someone should publish the names of the homeowners so we all know who they are.

    Forgive your enemies. Just make sure everyone remembers their names.

    No doubt the homeowners will claim the owners of Hans Bier Haus put the meat there to make them look bad. As if anything could make them look worse than they already do.

    I still think someone needs to check the meat. You never know.

  • Seems to me that the owner of the ‘private alley’ should have to clean up the mess.

    Wouldn’t this be a health department issue? I just can’t believe that the condo owners or probably a select few, are acting so childishly.

    And as far as the names of the condo owners, they are published. Both in HCAD and in the Harris County Clerk’s web site.

    What I find interesting is that all the appraisals for the condos are ‘pending’. Wonder if everyone is protesting?

  • If I owned the bar, I would have installed a nice awning over the patio with a beautifully painted message on top: “Hey Robinhood buyers: You can hear us!”

    I do believe in Kharma. Like that received by those new townhome owners who tried to get Walters on Washington shut down for noise years back. Been to Washington Ave. lately?

    I think I need a beer. I just love the smell of raw meat in the morning.

  • how can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat ? Glad Hans gets to stay there.

  • Yay Hans! Looks like I get to have another birthday party there this year.
    If those condo owners want to be mad at someone, it should be the developer who built the condos.