Students, bars disagree on entry rules

By: Travis Measley

Posted: 4/13/07

On the night of March 30, an international Ph.D. student and her boyfriend entered Hookah Station.

"It was crowded, so my boyfriend sat down at an open place at the bar and turned to ask me if I wanted a drink," she said.

The graduate student, who wished to remain anonymous, said that no more than 30 seconds after her boyfriend sat down, one of the bartenders grabbed him by the shoulders and told him that if he wasn't going to order a drink, he needed to "get the f*** out of here."

"We didn't want any trouble, so we left the bar and went to Logan's (another bar on Northgate)," the student said. "I was enraged, but I did not think of the incident in terms of race until we were walking by later on our way home. There were probably eight or ten Indian students standing outside the bar after all being thrown out for apparently no reason."

MJ Gerhard, an employee at Hookah Station, said diverse groups of people come to the club each night.

"To assume that this is an issue of race is a sad jump to an easy solution, when what we really have here is a case of misunderstanding between drunk customers and sober employees," Gerhard said.

Allegations of discrimination at Northgate bars are not a new phenomenon. In 2005, a student task force was formed to increase safety and prevent alleged discrimination on Northgate. Student leaders met with representatives of Northgate bars asking the representatives to change their entry policies to avoid discrimination.

Patrick Lukingbeal, a graduate student and former member of the task force, said even though the organization received various accounts of students who claimed they were being discriminated against, there was nothing the task force could do to prove any discrimination took place.

"Without physical, tangible proof, we could not file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and we could not file a complaint against the bars," Lukingbeal said. "We didn't give up. There was just nothing we could do at the time."

The task force was dissolved in the late spring of 2006.

The student said after leaving the bar, her group approached a nearby College Station police officer to talk to him about the incident.

"We asked a policeman standing nearby if they could throw us out because of our skin color to which he replied in the affirmative, saying that 'Yes! The bartender can throw you out if he has a problem with the fact that you are brown or Indian!' After that we all just went home," the graduate student said.

She went on to say that she had never before seen an incident such as this happen before at Texas A&M, and that she plans on never returning to Northgate.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits any public establishment from denying service or entry to a person based on color, race, sex, religion or national origin. It does not, however, prohibit a bar or restaurant owner from requiring a certain dress code and not allowing certain articles of clothing that may create controversy or violence, such as gang related paraphernalia or clothing promoting violence, sex or drugs.

Drew Gibson, a College Station attorney whose office is located in the Northgate area, said that if bar owners do not like certain things such as hats or baggy pants, they can ask a patron to leave, regardless of his or her race, ethnicity or gender.

On the front doors of bars such as Gatsby's, Hookah Station and V-bar, owners have posted very specific dress code lists and disclaimers stating that they have the right to refuse service to anyone and that they will ask to see valid identification from those wishing to purchase alcohol.

Siddharth Bela, an international student, recounted an incident at Hookah Station where a bouncer denied entrance to him and his friends, even though they had a reservation.

Bela said some of the bouncer's friends shouted racial slurs at the group, and then Hookah Station closed the doors on them so they could not enter. When they were closed out, Bela said, one of his friends kicked the door, and a police officer issued him a warning for destruction of property. While this was going on, another bouncer grabbed the man who had kicked the door and held him against the wall. Police arrested the bouncer on charges of assault.

Josh Pennington, a bouncer at O'Bannons, another bar on Northgate, said bouncers are not usually rough with patrons unless they absolutely have to be.

"If they have had to much, or are too drunk, then we just ask them to leave," Pennington said. "We don't want or need any trouble or TABC coming in here writing us tickets."

Lt. Mark Langwell of College Station police said that under his impression, bouncers and bar employees have no more rights than regular citizens to harm anyone. In cases reported such as these, the police look to see if a criminal law was broken on either side.

"We've arrested bouncers before on assault, but then again we've arrested customers for the same reason too," Langwell said. "We are (on Northgate) to keep the peace. We watch for disorderly conduct, fights, public intoxication, drunk driving, but it's hard to see everything. If you have a problem with a bouncer or bartender, report it with us, but if you are asked to leave a bar, just leave."