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Men Decry Tavern's Ban on Dreadlocks Part 1 (Read 3954 times)
Rapunzel
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Men Decry Tavern's Ban on Dreadlocks Part 1
Jun 6th, 2003 at 4:25am
 
Men decry tavern's ban on dreadlocks
By ELIZABETHE HOLLAND Post-Dispatch

Age, as it turned out, wasn't the problem. The men's hairstyles were, Carter said.

"He started moving toward me, so I figured I'd get my ID out. ... That's when he said it," said Carter of the May 17 incident. "He said, 'Sorry, you can't come in, sir. We have a no-dreadlocks policy.' I didn't say anything at first. My jaw just dropped open. ... It was sickening."

Carter, 29, and Williams, 27, are African-American men who wear their hair in dreadlocks. Dreadlocks are formed naturally when hair is allowed to mat, tangle and grow intertwined when not combed. While people of all colors wear dreadlocks, the style is most popular among African-Americans.

Carter and Williams are convinced they were prevented from entering the bar for racist reasons.

"That had never happened any place before," Williams said.

Carter and Williams arrived after 11 p.m. at the St. Louis tavern at 6300 Clayton Road intent on having drinks with friends who had been at a wedding and the following reception at the Artists' Guild in Clayton. Once told they couldn't enter the bar, Carter said he began arguing with the man at the door, who was accompanied by two off-duty St. Louis city officers working at the pub.

Carter, of St. Louis, and Williams, of Rock Hill, became angry and uttered obscenities, but friends quickly ushered them to a car to leave, both said.

Several wedding attendees, including the bride, challenged the man at the door, and tempers flared. When people from the wedding tried to re-enter the bar to tell others what had occurred, they were not allowed back inside.

Three weeks later, Carter and Williams remain angry.

"Seeing as they had the nerve to do it, I wouldn't expect them to apologize," Carter said.

Jack Lueders is president of the corporation that operates the Cheshire Inn, a restaurant and bar alongside the Cheshire Lodge. Lueders leases the property from Dan Apted, who owns and operates the Cheshire Lodge.

Lueders did not witness the incident but said he doesn't believe his employees or the off-duty police at the scene did anything wrong. He said he was told that the men with dreadlocks were unruly, argumentative and had used offensive language. That behavior - not the dreadlocks - prevented their entry to the bar, he said.

The Cheshire Inn does have a dreadlocks policy, however, and Lueders said he believes it came up at the door.

Lueders said the business has a policy in which people with dreadlocks are denied access if their hair is determined to be "dirty and stinky." The business developed the policy initially as a means to prevent a homeless man in the area from coming into the bar, he said. That man is African-American and wears dreadlocks.

Lueders insisted the policy is not race-related.

"You can't wash that hair, and it stinks, and we're a crowded bar, and we don't want stinky people in the bar," he said, explaining the policy. "If you look nice and you're obviously clean, nobody's going to go up and smell your hair."

Nobody attempted to smell Carter's or Williams' hair, said Carter, who added that people with dreadlocks do, indeed, wash their hair.

Lueders said he was told the men were dressed well. Both wore collared shirts, ties and dress pants, clothing they had worn to the wedding and reception.

"I think the problem was with the person carding," Lueders acknowledged. "He didn't know whether to let them in or not and wanted to get a manager to make that decision. That's my guess. So they were detained (and) they didn't want to be detained."

Carter and Williams maintain they were well-mannered when they arrived and that they were told right away they could not enter due to their dreadlocks.
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Rapunzel
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Men Decry Tavern's Ban on Dreadlocks Part 2
Reply #1 - Jun 6th, 2003 at 4:25am
 
There have been many cases nationwide in which employees have filed complaints against their employers due to rules regarding ethnic hairstyles. There are few examples, however, of businesses preventing access to customers for such reasons.

In June 1999, Adolfo's Discotheque in Kansas City was criticized for a dress code that disallowed, among other things, dreadlocks and braids. Following an investigation by the Kansas City Human Relations Department, the nightclub rewrote the policy.

"The effect (of the dress code) was to limit the number of African-Americans who would go to the nightclub," said Mike Bates, the human relations department's director. "We saw it as a kind of method of setting up a quota system."

About the same time, an establishment by the name of Roadhouse Ruby's South in the suburb of Olathe, Kan., also changed its dress code after a number of complaints were made. The business had forbidden men from wearing dreadlocks, corn rows or braids.

Sheryl Rose, a regional manager with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, said she has no recollection of any cases in the St. Louis area regarding patrons with dreadlocks.

Kenneth Jones, executive director of St. Louis' Civil Rights Enforcement Agency, said he, too, had never heard of such a policy. "I can't imagine that such a policy would exist in the city of St. Louis," Jones said.

The Cheshire Inn is in St. Louis, while its neighbor, the lodge, lies in Richmond Heights.

Apted said the lodge and its Fox & Hounds tavern do not have policies regarding dreadlocks.

Despite the claims of racism, Lueders said the issue boils down to the behavior of Carter and Williams, not skin color.

"We could care less about black or white; it was their behavior to our police officers that got them in trouble," Lueders said. "We wouldn't be in business if we discriminated. ... Some of our best customers are black."

Kate Marquess Swift, whose wedding Carter and Williams had attended, said the incident marred what had been a wonderful evening. When Swift learned her friends had been turned away, she hoped she could talk the man at the door into letting them in.

"I came out in my wedding dress thinking that was going to sway them in some way," Swift recalled. "It was like talking to a wall. He said, 'I'm sorry, ma'am. This is policy. No dreadlocks.'

"He didn't seem to understand why we were offended by that."

Carter Law, Swift's mother and an attorney, said she wants the Cheshire Inn to apologize.

"It was very mortifying and it was very offensive," Law said. "It was such a lovely evening that it was really a shame to have that happen."

Facts on dreadlocks

Dreadlocks can be worn long or short. They form naturally when the hair mats, tangles and grows intertwined when not combed.

People of all races wear their hair in dreadlocks, but the style is most common among African-Americans.

People often choose dreadlocks for their ease of styling, for religious reasons or due to an aversion to chemically treating hair.

For those not wanting to grow their own dreadlocks, extensions can be purchased.
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Susan Maxwell Schmidt
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