A Travis County judge denied the City of Bee Cave’s request for a temporary injunction to block Planet K from erecting a mural at the former Trading Post restaurant.

At a May 5 hearing, 261st District Court Judge Lora Livingston ruled against the injunction that would have ordered Planet K’s operating company, AusPro Enterprises, to not place the mural.

Despite the ruling, Bee Cave council member Bob Dorsett, who is also a lawyer, said he considered the ruling a critical legal achievement for the city.

The court action requires Planet K owner Michael Kleinman to provide at least five days written notice to Bee Cave before proceeding with work on a mural or put up a sign.

If Kleinman were to fail to do so, he would be in contempt of court.

“Without a doubt, he now knows he’s under a microscope,” Dorsett said.

Livingston’s order also requires the city to respond in a timely manner to any building, sign or site plan permit applications by Planet K, excluding variance, zoning or re-zoning requests.

“Plaintiff’s written response shall either approve said application or provide detailed explanations as to what deficiencies remain and what curative matters are required,” she wrote.

Before Planet K began construction on the building in March, Bee Cave’s existing ordinances prohibited murals on building walls that face public streets. Council members also amended several ordinances at a special meeting April 4 to define murals as signs to be governed by the city’s sign regulations.

The court’s decision is a reversal from Livingston’s April 22 ruling that the mural would cause harm to the city as a nuisance, which prompted Bee Cave to seek and the court to issue a temporary restraining order April 22 to restrain AusPro from “erecting, painting, locating or otherwise affixing an outdoor mural or sign on the [Trading Post] building located at 12701 Highway 71 West in Bee Cave, Texas.”

“We did not start this fight,” said AusPro’s lawyer, Terry Irion. “We’d rather not fight with any government entity but when they corrupt and dishonor the principles of free enterprise and our constitutional right to create public art, we will fight back with every resource we have. We take their attempts to subvert and deny our property rights as well as all of our constitutional rights very seriously.”

The business’ initial foray into Bee Cave immediately put the city and Planet K at odds. City officials reported Planet K’s construction crews had put up black paper on the building’s windows and started working on the building’s interior in March without permits. The city then issued a stop work order March 22 after the adult novelty store’s attempt to start construction.