Durango's COVID 'cowboy' rounds up spring break scofflaws, lines 'em up for shots

[TexasTowelie]

Local consortium hires actors to persuade downtown visitors to wear their masks


Bartenders were pouring Old-Fashioneds at a bar with a bullet hole straight through the wood. Servers in corsets and fishnet stockings roamed the room, passing an old piano that, twice a week, fills the building with ragtime tunes.

It was a Friday evening at the Diamond Belle Saloon on the main drag in Durango. Outside, a man in boots, a cowboy hat and a button-down vest adorned with a U.S. marshal badge patrolled the block, eyes scanning the streets for trouble. If trouble were to appear, it would likely take the form of errant Texans.

“You can’t throw a stone around here without hitting a Texan,” recalled Scott Perez, the man in the marshal get-up.

This was the Wild West, after all: spring break 2021. And leaders of this city of about 19,000 are eager to hold COVID-19 at bay with a bit of old-time law and order on mask mandates — and even a little modern vaccine science.

Read more: https://coloradonewsline.com/2021/04/03/durangos-covid-cowboy-rounds-up-spring-break-scofflaws-lines-em-up-for-shots/