City manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, council member Chad West and other city leaders gathered at Revelers Hall, a jazz bar in Bishop Arts, on Friday afternoon to announce a task force to review the city code provisions pertaining to entertainment venues.
The task force’s formation comes weeks after the city of Dallas’ recently-launched Nighttime Economy & Responsible Hospitality Division came under scrutiny for restricting two popular bars’ ability to charge covers for live music.
In early October, a city code compliance officer issued Revelers Hall – a New Orleans-style bar, whose doors typically remain open during performances – a notice of violation for producing “loud and disturbing noises and vibrations.”
Bar co-owner Jason Roberts said the city told them the bar’s music fee was not allowed. According to city code, charging entertainment fees changes a space’s use from a “restaurant” to a “commercial amusement.” The Free Man in Deep Ellum received a similar notice. Owners of both bars criticized the city’s decision as a hindrance to their ability to pay musicians and a blow to already-narrow profit margins.
“We’re 1,300 square feet. It’s hard to make the numbers work in order to bring the talent that we have in the city to play here,” Roberts said on Friday. “We paid out every year about $300,000 to local musicians, which is amazing for a little tiny space of this size.”
The new hospitality and nightlife task force will propose a framework for restaurants and bars to charge live music fees and re-evaluate the city’s noise ordinance, according to a memo from West. The group is expected to present its findings to the Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee by March 2026.
“It has become clear that our existing city code is outdated - much like our 1960s-era parking requirements before their modernization. To keep pace with today’s economy and culture, we have an opportunity to update our code to address music fees, entertainment permitting, and the noise ordinance in a balanced, common-sense way,” West wrote in the memo.
“This isn’t code department being the bad guys; this is code department enforcing the laws that exist on the books,” the councilman also said on Friday.
The bars’ qualms with the notice of violations raised questions around why the Nighttime Economy Division had been housed under the Code Compliance department, when the city’s 2025-2026 fiscal year budget stated the team would be within the Office of Arts and Culture.
“All nighttime staff have been consolidated under Code Compliance,” city spokesman Rick Ericson told The Dallas Morning News earlier in the week.
At an Oct. 20 meeting for the city’s arts and culture advisory commission, commissioner J. Damany Daniel described the consolidation as a “colossally bad idea.” He said the move took the team “out of the realm of advocacy and makes it less about engagement and more about enforcement.”
“Hear, hear,” another commissioner said after.
On Friday, The News asked Tolbert where the team is housed.
“I want to make it very clear today that the management activities, the outreach components will actually be in the Office of Arts and Culture and the code compliance will still be responsible for the enforcement side,” she said.
“We have a $5.2 billion budget, and a lot of the decisions are made during the budget process,” Tolbert continued. “As we get into the implementation of those items in the budget, we have an opportunity to step back and see if there’s a different rule of mind.”
Asked by The News about whether Revelers Hall can continue to charge a music fee, she said, “Without getting into all the details, I think you guys understand that we still have compliance activities.”
“If there are things that we can do in the interim that actually relieve some of those pain points, we’re going to be looking for those recommendations,” she also said.
In August, the nighttime economy division manager Eddie Grant shared priorities for the team before the arts and culture advisory commission.
“We are getting ready to hit the ground running going into fiscal year 26,” Grant said. He spoke about efforts to ensure public safety during the late hours – 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. – including code enforcement at venues.
“Venue is not the issue,” he said. “The venue is your ally.”
Grant was not in attendance at the Friday press conference.
As the Revelers Hall press conference concluded, a pianist and trombonist began to play jazz tunes and the music trickled out into the street.
Arts Access is an arts journalism collaboration powered by The Dallas Morning News and KERA.This community-funded journalism initiative is funded by the Better Together Fund, Carol & Don Glendenning, City of Dallas OAC, The University of Texas at Dallas, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Eugene McDermott Foundation, James & Gayle Halperin Foundation, Jennifer & Peter Altabef and The Meadows Foundation. The News and KERA retain full editorial control of Arts Access’ journalism.
