Hosts of biker events reconsider after fatal shootout at Waco restaurant

Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO

Motorcycle clubs have gathered dozens of times at Roy Barnett’s bar for meetings just like the one that led to a shootout among rival biker gangs at a Waco restaurant.

The setting, Barnett said, offers bikers the equivalent of Switzerland — a neutral zone where different clubs can come together to discuss issues, most of which are mundane. And they’ve always been peaceful affairs, he said.

Barnett, a biker himself, considers motorcycle groups his core clientele at the Deer Crossing Saloon in Selma, Texas, about 30 miles north of San Antonio. But he and others who regularly host biker events are reconsidering the risks of doing so in light of Sunday’s shootout, which left nine dead and 18 wounded.

Barnett has decided to forbid any more meetings of the umbrella group that was gathering in Waco when the killings occurred.

“I’ll help them out,” he said. “But I’m a businessman before I’m a biker.”

Police have said the meeting of the Confederation of Clubs at the Twin Peaks restaurant was meant to settle disagreements over turf among five gangs. Some bikers dispute that idea, insisting that the meeting was organized to discuss motorcycle laws and other matters.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the Twin Peaks restaurant immediately revoked the Waco franchise’s license.

Twin Peaks also suspended “bike nights” at all of its locations, including those in Texas, Nevada and Nebraska, to review safety procedures and out of respect for those killed and injured, company spokesman Rick Van Warner said.

The restaurants, known for their waitresses’ revealing uniforms, were not trying to attract outlaw motorcycle gangs by promoting biker nights, Van Warner said, and the shooting did not happen on one of these nights.