{"id":383347,"date":"2026-07-23T03:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T03:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/383347\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T03:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T03:25:11","slug":"its-killing-us-austins-watercraft-ban-spells-trouble-for-local-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/383347\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s killing us:’ Austin’s watercraft ban spells trouble for local businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 The City of Austin extended its ban on watercraft, and lakefront businesses say it’s affecting their margins.<\/p>\n

The ban was set in place on Friday, July 17, due to floodgate activity at several dams on the river following last week’s floods. <\/p>\n

It was originally scheduled to be lifted on Tuesday, but city and water officials extended the ban through Thursday, July 23 at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

“The 48-hour extension is necessary because higher and faster flows are expected to continue on the water for several days,” the City of Austin wrote.<\/p>\n

Several waterfront businesses that rent out various watercraft have been forced to close temporarily.<\/p>\n

\"Several<\/p>\n

Several watercraft rental businesses in Austin are temporarily closed due to a watercraft ban in effect until 5 p.m. Thursday, June 23. (Photo: CBS Austin\/Audrey Wong)<\/p>\n

Connor Champagne, Chief of Texas Operations at Lone Star Kayak Tours, says the hit to revenue is already apparent.<\/p>\n

ALSO| “Please don’t”: Austin officials urge residents to stay off waterways due to flooding<\/a><\/p>\n

“A weekend, generally, for a business like us is going to be a good 50% of our revenue for that particular week,” he said. “It’s usually like a $10,000 hit for us. And I imagine for larger businesses like Rowing Dock or Live Love Paddle who have bigger operations, they’re probably seeing an even bigger hit to their margins.”<\/p>\n

Casey Vick, the owner of Live Love Paddle, put it plainly: “It’s killing us… it’s killed our business. July is the busiest time of year,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Several<\/p>\n

Several watercraft rental businesses in Austin are temporarily closed due to a watercraft ban in effect until 5 p.m. Thursday, June 23. (Photo: CBS Austin\/Audrey Wong)<\/p>\n

This is the second year in a row that a watercraft ban has been implemented due to flooding. Last year’s ban was prompted by the Fourth of July floods that ravaged much of Central Texas.<\/p>\n

“Safety is always first, of course,” Vick said. “But in my opinion, [it] seems like they use an overabundance of caution, and maybe they need to consider the businesses on the lake a little more often than they do.”<\/p>\n

If the ban lifts tomorrow as intended, Champagne says his tour guides will waste no time getting back on the water.<\/p>\n

“We’re going to be open like 5 p.m. on Thursday. Like we’re going to be doing rentals for the last couple hours that we can,” he said. “And then we’re going to be rolling into\u2014we do like a tour at 8 p.m. So we’re just going to go hard into operating.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 The City of Austin extended its ban on watercraft, and lakefront businesses say it’s affecting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-383347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}