Posted on 09/01/2013 11:53:17 AM PDT by narses
PORTLAND – A Portland bar owner has been ordered to pay about $400,000 to a group of transgendered people he banned from his establishment last year.
The Bureau of Labor and Industries civil rights division imposed the penalty against Chris Penner, owner of the Twilight Room Annex, the Oregonian reported Friday.
Eleven people will share in the penalty, with amounts ranging from $20,000 to $50,000.
It’s the first penalty imposed under the 2007 Oregon Equality Act, which protects the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Oregonians in employment, housing and public places. Some other complaints ended in settlements.
The bureau’s civil rights division began investigating the bar formerly known as The P Club last year after Penner left a voice message for one of the T-Girls, a social group for transgendered people that went to the bar on Friday nights.
According to the complaint filed with the bureau, the message said: “People think that a.) We’re a tranny bar, or b.) We’re a gay bar. We are neither. People are not coming in because they just don’t want to be here on a Friday night now.”
The complaint listed 11 aggrieved persons, 10 of whom present as women. Their legal names are not given.
The T-Girls said they were devastated and humiliated. They said they went to the bar every Friday for two years because they felt safe there – the bartender treated them well, and bouncers walked them to their cars as they left.
“The individuals had found a place at the P Club where they found they could share their lives, their stories,” Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian said. “When that is stripped away, that is an indignity that is severe.”
Penner denied last year that he is biased but said other customers complained that the T-Girls left the stall doors open and seats up in the women’s restrooms and business had dropped.
Penner’s lawyer, Jonathan Radmacher, said his client was not surprised by the decision: Avakian brought the complaint, and his deputy affirmed it.
“The writing was on the wall,” Radmacher said, “but we went through the process because we thought it was important that the facts came out.”
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
Drunk trannies - 1
Normal people - 0
Looks like the deviants are leading the way to a police state.
Sad.
And what a police state!
Just give them crappy service & see how long they stay around.
how can you have a social bar where men expect to meet women and women expect to meet men, and you have a subset that is dressing like one, acting like the other, desiring who knows what....
bankruptcy can be your friend...
...so if I’m a drunk (which is a disability under the Americans with disabilities act), bars and liquor stores are required to sell to me?
They said they went to the bar every Friday for two years because they felt safe there – the bartender treated them well, and bouncers walked them to their cars as they left.
Apparently their first mistake was treating them like proper customers.
Freedom only applies to LGBTQ.
I feel bad for business owners. They are slaves to agenda groups.
Refuse.
The P Club
With a name like that I’m not surprised they attracted freaks.
What ever happened to “We Reserve thr Right to Refuse Service to Anyone”?
I see those signs in businesses all the time!
Since when does a bar belong to the PATRONS? Good grief.
It’s a freaking BAR. It’s not a place they’re even RENTING. It’s made out like it’s their sanctuary and the evil landowner kicked them out in the cold and there’s no other place in the world they can be perverts in.
What about one of the eleven’s HOMES?!?!? Have your damn gathering at somebody’s HOME, and switch homes every week?!?!
A bunch of guys doing this is not itself inherently a club. I hope these people get Liberty Counsel or Alliance Defense Fund to help with their case.
They already did that once. They thought they would be in charge but the guys who actually got power using their help turned around and put them in concentration camps. Pink triangles, anyone?
I wold strongly suggest to all business owners that these signs are in their windows, above your checkout areas/where you service customers, and included in any written contracts you use.
I wonder if this guy is related to Bob Avakian, leader of the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party?
All that civil rights acts crap rush and beck andany here laud led directly to this
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.