Name: Will Chick-fil-A come to the San Antonio airport after all?
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Will Chick-fil-A come to the San Antonio airport after all?

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAfter excluding Chick-fil-A as a vendor at San Antonio International Airport last year, the city now must offer the Georgia fast-food chain a spot at the airport if it wants federal officials to drop an investigation into the controversial decision.Whether Chick-fil-A or City Council members have the appetite for such a deal is a different question.San Antonio has reached an informal agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration over the city’s decision to strike Chick-fil-A from a new slate of airport vendors prepared by an Atlanta-based concessionaire, officials said Monday.“Let’s put this behind us,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. “It was one of an endless series of vendor contracts that come before City Council. We’re in the middle of a pandemic and a recession. San Antonio has bigger issues on its agenda.”On ExpressNews.com:At the time of the vote, District 1 Councilman Roberto Treviño cited Chick-fil-A’s history of donating to groups opposed to LGBTQ rights. That angered religious conservatives, who accused council members of discriminating against the company on religious grounds.The FAA launched the probe after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to look into whether the city broke federal civil rights law or Transportation Department regulations.The FAA announced an informal resolution with the city in a letter dated Thursday.City officials said they “offered to resolve the FAA investigation informally” and have maintained that they did not discriminate against the fast-food chain.“Our view is we want to have the airport working with the FAA on how do we recover from the devastating impact the pandemic has had on the transportation industry,” City Attorney Andy Segovia said. “We want to focus on that rather than on this matter.”Paxton applauded the agreement.“This is a win for religious liberty in Texas, and I strongly commend the FAA and the city of San Antonio for reaching this resolution,” Paxton said.Texas Take:Under the resolution, the city has 45 days to hammer out an offer to Chick-fil-A — via Atlanta-based Paradies Lagardère, which holds the airport concession contract — at terms “reasonable and consistent with customary business practices.”If San Antonio comes through, the FAA will drop the investigation.Whether a Chick-fil-A restaurant will wind up at the airport depends on whether the company would be interested in setting up shop there and whether the City Council approves such a deal.On Monday, a spokeswoman said Chick-fil-A is “not pursuing a location in the San Antonio airport at this time.”That came as no surprise to District 10 Councilman Clayton Perry, the council’s lone conservative member, who voted in favor of keeping Chick-fil-A on the list of vendors.“Who would blame them? Why do that?” Perry said. “I’d say, ‘Hey, screw you, San Antonio, y’all didn’t want us there to begin with. What’s changed?’”Three council members — Perry, District 3 Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran and District 5 Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales — said they would vote in favor of an agreement that would allow the restaurant chain to open an airport location. Perry and Viagran each lamented that the city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees defending its decision.When council members struck Chick-fil-A from the contract, they instructed Paradies to find another restaurant to fill the spot. But a year and a half after the vote, that spot hasn’t been filled.At one point, Paradies negotiated with Whataburger to take the space Chick-fil-A would have occupied, but talks stalled.“This is almost two years, and we still don’t have a vendor for that spot,” Viagran said. “And we have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on this.”District 8 Councilman Manny Peláez, who voted in favor of nixing the chain from the contract, said he likely wouldn’t vote to allow the restaurant at the airport — in part because it’s not based locally or open on Sundays.“Clearly, Chick-fil-A is a culture war lightning rod, and I’m not interested in having those debates at the airport,” Peláez said.Treviño, the councilman who led the charge to strike Chick-fil-A from the contract, declined to comment.On ExpressNews.com:The March 2019 vote embroiled conservatives including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who said the city was discriminating against the company on religious grounds.Chick-fil-A’s late founder, A. Truett Cathy, was a devout Southern Baptist who opted to close the company’s restaurants on Sundays. Its chief operating officer spoke out against same-sex marriage in 2012.Then-Councilman Greg Brockhouse used controversy over the vote to court conservatives and evangelicals in his close but unsuccessful bid to oust Nirenberg in the 2019 mayoral election.Nirenberg had cited financial considerations and passenger convenience as his reasons for rejecting Chick-fil-A. The chain’s policy of staying closed Sundays would deprive hungry travelers of one less option and reduce airport revenue, he said.The mayor did not say Monday whether he would vote to bring Chick-fil-A to the airport.The vote also led Texas lawmakers to pass, on a largely partisan vote, the “Save Chick-fil-A” bill. The legislation took effect last September and bars Texas government agencies from punishing people and companies for affiliating with or donating to a religious organization.Local conservative activists sued the city on those grounds. But in August, the 4th Court of Appeals ruled that they had no standing and reversed a lower court decision. Activists have said they plan to appeal the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court.Joshua Fechter is a staff writer covering San Antonio government and politics. To read more from Joshua, . | Twitter:

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateAfter excluding Chick-fil-A as a vendor at San Antonio International Airport last year, the city now must offer the Georgia fast-food chain a spot at the airport if it wants federal officials to drop an investigation into the controversial decision.Whether Chick-fil-A or City Council members have the appetite for such a deal is a different question.San Antonio has reached an informal agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration over the city’s decision to strike Chick-fil-A from a new slate of airport vendors prepared by an...

Will Chick-fil-A come to the San Antonio airport after all?

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