Austin restaurant stage faces closure

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A showdown over a music stage pits a popular Austin restaurant against the City.

The City's code-enforcement team shut down the music stage at Guero's restaurant in South Austin Friday night. The reason: they say the restaurant does not have a permit.

But we talked to the restaurant owner Rob Lippincott Saturday and he told us the city gave him permission to operate without a permit.

We got a phone call from Mayor Pro-Tem Mike Martinez who said, he's tried to help Lippincott bring the patio into compliance.

However, Lippincott says the city has made it nearly impossible for him to get the proper permits and he was under the impression that it was ok for him to keep operating the patio until proper permits were issues.

Mayor Protem Mike Martinez posted this on his Twitter page Saturday.

So Guero's outdoor stage was shut down last night.

They've had 14 months to fix this. It was built w/o a permit. Plain and simple. Idiots!

Lippincott didn't like that too much.

"Part of it was he was supposed to help, and you would think would help a taxpayer. Well no help, zero help out of him, and obstruction by the city buraeucracy to the point where I haven't been able to get my permits," he said.