Bartenders have been pouring Previous-Fashioneds at a bar with a bullet gap straight by means of the wooden. Servers in corsets and fishnet stockings roamed the room, passing an previous piano that, twice every week, fills the constructing with ragtime tunes.
It was a Friday night on the Diamond Belle Saloon on the primary drag in Durango, Colorado. Outdoors, a person 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 hassle. If hassle have been to seem, it might possible take the type of errant Texans.
“You may’t throw a stone round right here with out hitting a Texan,” recalled Scott Perez, the person within the marshal get-up.
This was the Wild West, in any case: spring break 2021. And leaders of this metropolis of about 19,000 are keen to carry covid-19 at bay with a little bit of old-time regulation and order on masks mandates — and even a little bit fashionable vaccine science.
Perez could be very accustomed to this block, having staged his demise a number of instances outdoors the saloon throughout summertime gunfight performances. The previous cowboy and present actor, stuntman and