Bar’s Admission Policy Is Questioned by Some
Arthur Santana, Washington Post, Nov. 7
Bouncers at Tailgates Sports Cafe in Charles County used to check only the birth date on patrons’ driver’s licenses to make sure they were old enough to go inside the bar. Now they’re checking addresses, too.
The owners of the Southern Maryland bar have decided to charge anyone who lives in the District and Prince George’s County $20 to get in the door.
“We’re not saying that we don’t want people from any other areas here,” said Jessie Haiden, who co-owns the bar on Route 301 in White Plains, “but we found that that’s where the majority of our problems were coming from.”
Haiden said the policy was adopted several weeks ago to keep out those she said are unruly customers as part of the management’s effort to reduce the number of times police have to be summoned to the establishment.
{snip}
“Certainly there seems to be on the face of it a racial discrimination component there,” said E. Ned Sloan, vice president and attorney for the D.C. chapter of the NAACP.
At the very least, Sloan said, the bar has a policy of “geographic discrimination.”
