Bar Feud Sabotage

Country western bar tries to sabotage rival with fake gay bar website: A Buck Wild court case

Instead of resorting to a mechanical bull competition or a line-dancing contest, a Webster county western bar designed a phony website to take on a rival club . . . a decision that has left the popular area establishment facing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

In April, Buck Wild country dance club threw open its doors for the first time only to discover an sexually-explicit website falsely portraying the new venue as a gay and lesbian bar. The owners eventually traced the sabotage to the nearby Big Texas Dance Hall.

Despite efforts to have it removed from the Internet, the explicit phony page stayed active for months.

According to Harris County civil court records, the site featured a pair of naked men having sex along with the tagline, "Buck Wild Clear Lake is the #1 gay and lesbian country nightclub in the Houston area! Cum and get Butt Wild at Buck Wild."

The suit claims that Big Texas owners knew very well that its competitor was not a gay club.

Despite efforts to have it removed from the Internet, the phony page stayed active for months to causing "significant damages" to the newly-launched club, which formerly operated under the name Bikini Beach for close to seven years. The false Internet site was finally shut down in August.

Buck Wild owner Mani Mobasser — a club promoter for nearly three decades, according to the Houston Chronicle — now seeks a staggering $5 million for defamation and a full jury trial. Mobasser was unable to discuss the case with CultureMap on Friday, saying only that he's left the matter to the courts.

An on-duty manager at the Big Texas Dance Hall was unaware of the lawsuit, and club owner John Savage was not available for comment at the time of CultureMap's phone call.

Formerly called Bikini Beach, Buck Wild claims the fake website has and will cost it upwards of $5 million.

Buck Wild country western dance club with crowd in Webster

Photo by Darrel G Foursquare

Formerly called Bikini Beach, Buck Wild claims the fake website has and will cost it upwards of $5 million.

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No Wallet Required

Texas grocer H-E-B finally rolls out digital tap-to-pay services

Photo courtesy of H-E-B

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Texas' favorite grocery store has some good news for shoppers who have a habit of forgetting their wallets. H-E-B is starting a phased rollout for digital tap-to-pay services, starting in San Antonio before spreading to the rest of the chain's stores.

The rollout began Monday, October 7. A release says it'll take "about a week" to spread to all stores in the region before making it ways across Texas. Although it is not known which stores will add the service on what date, the rollout includes all H-E-B stores, including Mi Tienda, H-E-B's Mexican grocery store that has locations in Houston.

With tap to pay, shoppers will finally be able to use smartphone-based systems such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay, as well as tapping a physical card.

Payments can be made with those apps, or "digital wallets," at cash registers and self-checkout lanes, as well as restaurants and pharmacies within H-E-B stores. They won't be accepted right away at H-E-B fuel pumps, but customers can use them to pay for gas if they bring their phones to the fuel station payment window.

This isn't exactly cutting-edge technology; Google Wallet launched in 2011, leading the market, and was followed by Apple Pay in 2014. But it's not ubiquitous either. In 2023, a poll by Forbes Advisor found that barely more than half of respondents used digital wallets more than traditional forms of payment.

H-E-B is on a bit of a payment revolutionizing kick, also launching a debit card in 2022 and a partnership in August of 2024 with the H-E-B-owned delivery service Favor for its fastest order fulfillment yet. Central Market and Joe V’s Smart Shop, two other H-E-B brands, also recently launched tap to pay.

“At H-E-B, we’re always exploring a broad range of technologies to enhance how customers shop and pay for products,” H-E-B vice president Ashwin Nathan said in a statement. “This has been one of the most requested services we have received from our customers and partners, and we are excited to now make this popular technology available at all our H-E-B locations.”

More information about H-E-B is available at heb.com.

h-e-b grocery technology

Bar Feud Sabotage

Country western bar tries to sabotage rival with fake gay bar website: A Buck Wild court case

Formerly called Bikini Beach, Buck Wild claims the fake website has and will cost it upwards of $5 million.

No Wallet Required

Texas grocer H-E-B finally rolls out digital tap-to-pay services

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