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a. He refused to close his bar because of the pandemic.
b. He refused to close his bar because there was a pandemic.
Are the above sentences grammatically correct, and do they make sense?
The intended meaning is:
and not
I think both (a) and (b) are technically ambiguous, but within the given context, the absurd meaning would be immediately rejected.
Both of the sentences are grammatical, but you're right that they are either ambiguous or don't mean what you want them to mean.
To make the meaning explicitly clear, use despite instead of because:
Alternatively, it could be said in the following ways::
He refused to close his bar because of the pandemic.
He refused to close his bar because there was a pandemic.
He gave the pandemic as a reason for refusing to closing his bar.
He refused to close his bar [just] because of the pandemic.
He refused to close his bar [just] because there was a pandemic.
Even though there was a pandemic happening, he refused to close his bar. He explicitly denied that as a good enough reason for closing his bar. He played down the seriousness of the pandemic and decided not to shut his bar.
However, the meaning you are after is most likely "despite"
He refused to close his bar despite the pandemic.
He refused to close his bar despite there being a pandemic.
So, yes, both original sentences are grammatical, but their strict literal meaning is not the same as their looser assumed meaning. Some people would reject the "absurd" reason, but others wouldn't. "Before the pandemic happened he was planning on retiring and closing his bar, but then he thought it would be a place of refuge, so he refused to close his bar because of the pandemic." Just because we don't agree with someone else's thinking, doesn't mean we should label it "absurd" and assume they could never think it, and assume that other people wouldn't find it reasonable either.
To my ear the first tends to the intended, and the second to the "absurd" meaning. The reason is that structurally they are both ambiguous and admit both meanings.
For example:
He refused to close his bar because there was a horde of thirsty patrons.
Here the contextual hint makes it clear that the "absurd" construction is meant.
Similarly:
He refused to close his clinic, because of the medical needs caused by the pandemic. (I used a comma here too, as an extra hint.)
To disambiguate you have several choices. There is nuance in them though.
He refused to close the bar... ...despite the pandemic. - indicates that there is force in the reason, but it is overridden. ...for a mere pandemic. - indicates that he considers pandemics minor. ...just for the pandemic. - more reason would be needed. ...for this pandemic. - maybe for some other pandemic, and so forth.
Both your versions are ambiguous since “because” could attach either to “refused” or to “close”. Adding extra words after “because” doesn’t solve that problem.
A reader faced with this will likely conclude that “because” attaches to the nearer of the two verbs, which is also (I hope) the intended meaning. We see how this works when we move “because” nearer to “refused” and the absurd meaning now seems more likely:
Because the writer didn’t do this, we can assume the non-absurd meaning was intended.
If you change “because” to “despite”, all of the interpretations have the same meaning, so this would be preferred:
A) is perfect idiomatic English and means what you think it does. His course of action is to stay open, the pandemic was a negative in that decision, but not negative enough.
The idiom is a negated negative-sounding word (examples below) followed by "because of". Whatever comes next is a reason against, but not strong enough. I did a search for some examples using: [don't "because of a"]. You can see they follow the pattern:
"Don't miss out because of a first impression", "Don't ruin a good today because of a bad yesterday", "Don't punish all who need help because of a few who cheat", "Don't turn away business because of a pet!", "Don't quit because of a vindictive person". I also found "I'm not going to lose him because of money". Losing is bad, not losing is a double-negative, so it's understood to be a lack of money, not that they will use their vast wealth to keep him.
Over to B). That's not as good since it's nothing special. They avoided using the well-understood "because of". Maybe they avoided it since that's not what they meant to say. So now we have to decide whether the pandemic was a a positive tipping factor, or a not-good-enough reason against.
For a contrasting examples, suppose some music started playing, after which we decided to stay where where we are. "I'll stay because of the music" is easy -- it's the reason we're staying. "I won't leave because of the music" means we're staying in spite of it. "I won't leave because that music is playing" is less clear and probably only makes sense in a larger context.
A and B don't necessarily make sense.
Both mean that he didn't close his bar BECAUSE of the pandemic. Which would mean, due to the pandemic, he didn't close his bar. That isn't true.
The simplest and a good way to put it is "Even though there was a pandemic going on, he didn't close his bar"
