Man Kicked Out of Restaurant Over Gold Teeth, Threatens To Sue

[thelakelander]

I'm really not trying to be difficult.  I'm just trying to make the point that you can't have a free-market and also say that every business in America has to serve everyone regardless of what they wear or how they look or what they can afford.  Democracy or Communism, you decide.

But we do.  The market has never been as free as you suggest.  You can't choose to not serve women if you don't want too.  You can't choose to not serve latinos if you don't want to.  You can't refuse service to someone because you may have a personal problem against people who shop at Express or Brooks Brothers.  That's why we have discrimination laws and offenders getting sued out the wazoo on a common basis.

[Lunican]

Denny's tries to make amends for racial discrimination

WASHINGTON (AP) - Seeking to make amends for racial discrimination, Denny's is giving more than $1.5 million to civil rights groups and the United Negro College Fund. The restaurant chain also announced a policy of ''zero tolerance for discrimination.''

''We are an entirely different company,'' said James B. Adamson, chairman and CEO of Flagstar Companies Inc., parent company of Denny's. ''We are still the butt of some jokes, but we are saying people should give us a second chance.''

Adamson was joined at a Wednesday news conference by representatives of nine civil rights groups, each of which received a check for $100,000.

The United Negro College Fund will receive an additional $625,000 Thursday at a news conference in San Francisco.

The payments are part of a 1994 settlement of two class-action discrimination suits against the company. By December 1995, the company had paid $54 million to nearly 300,000 customers who said they were subjected to racially discriminatory behavior at Denny's restaurants. Denney's operates 1,600 restaurants in the United States.

Since the settlement, Adamson said, Denny's has embarked on an aggressive campaign to increase opportunities for minorities. Purchasing contracts with minority-owned companies have increase sixfold since 1993. Then, Denny's had one black franchise owner. Now it has 28.dinmynririncdmafi

The news conference coincided with the 68th birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

The Rev. Joseph L. Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the civil rights groups receiving $100,000, recalled that King was leading a poor people's campaign in Memphis, Tenn., when he was assassinated in 1968. Lowery said the company's effort to diversify its work force and assist minorities would have made King proud.

[second_pancake]

The market has never been as free as you suggest.  You can't choose to not serve women if you don't want too.  You can't choose to not serve latinos if you don't want to.  You can't refuse service to someone because you may have a personal problem against people who shop at Express or Brooks Brothers.  That's why we have discrimination laws and offenders getting sued out the wazoo on a common basis.

See my previous post where I address the difference between discrimination and selective business practices.

[second_pancake]

The news conference coincided with the 68th birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

Wow.  Don't know that I would've made that business decision.  A little superfluous.  Any day would've been just as good as the next.  I think using that day had more potential negatives than positives around it...one being lessening the importance of why we remember it just to name one.

[thelakelander]

The market has never been as free as you suggest.  You can't choose to not serve women if you don't want too.  You can't choose to not serve latinos if you don't want to.  You can't refuse service to someone because you may have a personal problem against people who shop at Express or Brooks Brothers.  That's why we have discrimination laws and offenders getting sued out the wazoo on a common basis.

See my previous post where I address the difference between discrimination and selective business practices.

Oh, I saw it.  Imo, this seems to fall on the side of "discrimination" more than it does "selective business practices".

[gradco2004]

Here is a related story...

REACT: Some SA Apartments Banning Tattoos

Last Update: 9/26/2007 7:53 pm

It's against the law for landlords to discriminate based on the color of a person's skin. But can they reject you because of what's on your skin?
Some San Antonio apartment complexes are refusing to rent to people with tattoos and body piercings. News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooter Jaie Avila investigates the case of one couple who says that policy is unfair.

REACT: News 4 WOAI's Jaie Avila comments about how many of us have seen people with tattoos and body piercings and thought "wait until they try to get an office job, or worse yet, wait until they get older and start losing the battle with gravity." But should people be denied an apartment because of their 'body art'?Jaie wonders if this is a sign of things to come. Click here to read more and tell us what you think about it.


Gilbert Carrillo thinks tattoos are an artform. He's been to tattoo conventions and one of his tattoos was featured in a magazine. "Ever since I was 18, to now, 25, bit by bit, covering up here, covering up there."

But last month, Carrillo's tattoos kept him and his wife, Melissa, from moving into an apartment complex called the Villas at Medical Center. "We liked the apartment, we brought them a check for the deposit and a check for the application fee," says Melissa.

Later, Gilbert went by to look at the apartment wearing a short sleeve shirt. The next day, the Carrillos were told they didn't qualify to live there, because the tattoos on Gilbert's arms violated the policy on personal appearance.

"For them to be so judgmental on a person's appearance, and for them to judge someone based on them having a tattoo is just ridiculous, you know," says Melissa.

The Carrillos were also upset that the manager refused to refund their full $70 application fee. But mostly, they feel the policy is discriminatory.

So the Trouble Shooters went to the Villas at Medical Center to hear their side of it.

The manager, Daisy Salazar, said she wasn't allowed to talk to us. "We have our own lawyers, I can't speak to anyone," said Salazar.

But we didn't give up. We contacted one of the owners of the apartments: A southern California doctor named Edward Frankel.

Frankel e-mailed us a statement saying his apartment complexes do, in fact, "reject prospective tenants who have... tattoos exposed on the neck, head, hands and wrists, or large tattoos that cover over 40% of the lower or upper arm."

Frankel says, "We do not discriminate. The above applies to persons of any race, color, gender, etc."

Frankel, and his partners, have purchased numerous upscale apartment complexes in San Antonio and Dallas, where they've also banned pierced eyebrows and tongues. Tenants can't have more than one nose piercing, or more than five earrings.

Local fair housing officials say the rules may be unusual, but they are not illegal.

"Refusing to rent to somebody because they have tattoos may be unfair, but it's not discrimination under the fair housing act, unless the tattoos are specific to the person's religion or national origin," says Sandy Tamez of the San Antonio Fair Housing Council.

After the Trouble Shooters started looking into the case, the apartment complex refunded the Carrillos' full application fee.

But the couple is still angry that a landlord would consider body art to be the mark of a bad tenant.

REACT: News 4 WOAI's Jaie Avila comments about how many of us have seen people with tattoos and body piercings and thought "wait until they try to get an office job, or worse yet, wait until they get older and start losing the battle with gravity." But should people be denied an apartment because of their 'body art'?Jaie wonders if this is a sign of things to come.

http://www.woai.com/content/troubleshooters/story.aspx?content_id=57db782b-9874-4b37-aa00-0402ab8a7ab1

I don't think its fair either, being that I am mixed race & half black, and I understand the cultural side of the arguement. I cannot agree that it is descrimination though. There are very specific things that are LEGALLY descrimination. If he sues, it will probably get thrown out.

[second_pancake]

I totally agree, gradco. 

It sucks that there are people out there that ruin things for others.  You know the reason the apartment complex has this policy is because of the stigma attached to people who have tattoos, and nowadays almost everyone has a tattoo so it's not like it once was where only 'bad' people had them.  A shame that the apartment complex feels they have to do this to protect themselves, but i agree it's not discrimination.  I believe if we continue to classify things like this (what someone wears, bodyart, piercings, tattoos, etc.) as discrimination, then we negate TRUE discriminatory practices which would be an injustice to everyone.  Good story.  Thanks for sharing!

[RiversideGator]

Stephen, you're a business owner.  Are you saying that it would be good business to open an establishment in Ortega, serving authentic French cuisine

Incidentally, last time I was in Paris, dining on authentic French Cuisine, almost all the nicer establishments were playing american Hip Hop.

  When were you in Paris and where did you go?  I dont recall any such thing.  I seem to recall classical music the last time I dined at Taillevent, the finest restaurant in the world IMO.

http://www.taillevent.com/

[RiversideGator]

For some reason, I bet the outrage would not be so deep if the restaurant threw out a guy for wearing a wifebeater t-shirt - common attire of the white poor.  I bet the dress code excludes low rent types of all races and this is perfectly legal.  The standard, I believe, is is there discriminatory intent not is there discriminatory effect.  If they throw out a black guy who comes in wearing nice clothes and no grills, then he would have a lawsuit.  This does not appear to have been the case.

BTW, whatever happened to the age old American right of freedom of association?  If a restaurant wants to exclude me, I would not care and would feel in no way diminished.  Maybe I just have better self-esteem but I would prefer to dine where I am appreciated anyway.  I guess Boomtown is out.   

[gatorback]

Let me say that that the wonderful thing about america.  You don't have to do business with people you don't want to.  There's nothing you can do about it.  I don't have to server you nor do I have to admit you to our club club. 

[thelakelander]

Who knows, before long we'll be banning people with braids and afros from coming in to get a bite to eat.  Maybe its just me, coming from across the tracks and growing up outside of "mainstream" culture, but the body of work, from the media reports to Roxy's website response has Jim Crow era level of ignorance written all over it.  Most my disagree and that's fine, but to me it just a reminder that despite the progress our society has made in the past few decades, we're still not completely there yet. 

If I were in the victim's situation, assuming he wasn't doing anything other than trying to eat with the same green money everyone else accepts, I'd explore my legal options and at the very least exercise my American right to drive him out of business in an effort to nip this type of crap in the bud.

[thelakelander]

The Carrillos were also upset that the manager refused to refund their full $70 application fee. But mostly, they feel the policy is discriminatory.

They at least could have gave this tattooed up couple their $70 application fee back, since they weren't "qualified" in the first place.

[Ocklawaha]

Memory lane? Yeah, I remember when my family had a visit by the KKK because my uncle Doug was a young black business partner with my father, and dad allowed him to stay with us and OMG... EAT with us for several months before he found his own place. This by the way was in MARYLAND right outside of DC. The white boyz caught dad in the yard where he was playing with a bow and arrow set and shooting at an old corn flakes box.
They had seen him put one right in the middle of the box... then as they approached, he let another go which split the first arrow (yes I saw Mythbusters, so did it split all the way? beats me but it DID split the arrow) Suddenly one of the "good ol boyz" sez, "Wow, your REALLY good with that thing..." Dad knew who they were and laid down the bow and said, "Yeah, the nice thing about these is you never know where the shot is coming from..." They thanked him for his time and scooted off down the street.

FUNNY? Yep. Dad almost NEVER used the bow and arrow set, and to put two in the middle, let alone the bale of straw was pure divinely guided.

Another? Yeah. As a hippie I knew this young nurse grad student in Dunlap, California. She was model material and we really hit it off... She went on a sojourn to San Francisco for a few months, then called to tell me she was back in town and we could meet for dinner at our favorite restaurant. I drove over there with all those warm fuzzy visions in my head that a long-haired leaping gnome would have. As she walked up I could see the change in her... She was right out of the tree house in the movie "Without a Paddle"... In fact she looked and smelled more like Big Foot, then the little nurse that had left town a few months before. People moved away as she walked to her seat. We laughed, ate and I tried not to breathe... Finally it was over. REALLY OVER! Simple solution, we never did that (or anything else) again. But I have laughed for 33 years over the incident.

FUNNY? Yes, Just get a life people. Damn, next we'll be telling people you have to bathe with a certain soap to eat in our fine establishments. When that day comes, I'll join my nurse friend and GO BIGFOOT on someplace!

Ocklawaha

[second_pancake]

When that day comes, I'll join my nurse friend and GO BIGFOOT on someplace!

roflmao!!!  You can do that now with me!  I'll take my unshaven pits, with my sleeveless shirt and we'll go visit Stephen down at his place.  He doesn't allow sleeveless shirts and mandates hygeine as part of his dress code   (SD:  I'm just giggin ya    )

[thelakelander]

I'll buy a gold grill, get a Tyson face tatoo, grow dreads, put on a wife beater and meet you two at Stephen's place for a burger.