It’s common knowledge to the ALRC members that there are bar policies out there that discriminate against people of color. They applauded the blog statements and thanked Sconzie for writing his blog post, even tho the Isthmus pulled it.
THE ARTICLE
Ok, first of all, the article. Isthmus pulled it, others have revived it with the magic of the internet and Google.
It even made the ALRC agenda. They saved the article as well.
ALRC DISCUSSION
Second, here’s the discussion from last night. (Sorry, I got up at 3:30 am yesterday, so I’m not sure this is as accurate as usual . . . it was at the end of a 16 hour day I was trying to type this . . . )
David Hart says he asked a guest to come and speak to the committee, he is a guest of the committee, not a registrant, so he can have more time.
Jack Craver says chair asked him to come in to discuss his post on thedailypage.com about his experience at Logan’s. He went there with a few friends and noticed a sign that said UWw student and alumni night, he asked what does that mean, will there be discounts. The bouncer said you don’t’ need to worry about it, another bouncer elaborated to his friend and they said this is to protect you, to keep undesirables out. His friend thought it had racial undertones, the bouncer said there were some incidents with African Americans and said it was easier to do it this way, to deter that behavior. They also said they would turn away any troublemakers, black or white. They left and they were standing there and a few black men tried to get in, they didn’t let in people with state ids. That is a policy you discussed before, it may not be in place any more, but those guys seemed disillusioned and said they knew what what going on and just left. He wrote a post about it, but he has had positive experiences there, there have black employees and he has had good times there but seems like a sad situation, whatever their intent with the dress codes or ids or fake events, its definitely not good for community morale and some people feel pretty left out.
Tom Farley asked if he has gotten any responses to his post.
Craver explains thedailypage took it down, he is a regular blogger there and the editors took it down because they felt like what I was saying was too harsh without getting bar owners side of story, if it was an article in the paper he would do that, but not for a blog.
Farley asks if there were no official responses.
Craver says “no”.
Shiva Bidar-Sielaff says thank you for writing the article, this is not news to us that are not all that white, I’m glad the issue was raised to a new level of public scrutiny because of a related issue, some bars have decided to have further restrictions on ids. The mayor, alders and alcohol coordinator are interested in digging deeper and looking at policy issues that we can address and they do fall into equal opportunity concerns. It is a discussion we were having, they are meeting with mayor’s office next Monday and Equal Opportunities Commission is going to take this item up, it will make its way through our discussions and come back to the committee if there is specific action to take.
Hart says there was legislation from this committee several years ago, but he doesn’t remember what happened, maybe they should look at that again.
Mark Woulf the city Alcohol Coordinator says he appreciates Jack for helping to frame the discussion, he has a question for City Attorney Roger Allen. Bidar-Sielaff mentioned the role of the Equal Opportunities Commission, can you explain how the issues of discrimination could potentially coincide with ALRC?
Allen says it was a great honor to work with the Equal Opportunities Commission in the past, there area a number of protected classes in the Equal Opportunities Commission ordinance and Department of Civil Rights enforces them. It is complaint driven, if someone feels they have been discriminated against they file a complaint with the Department of Civil Rights, they have an investigator and mediator who works on the cases, they contact the complainant and respondent and go to a hearing if not mediated. There is then a ruling by the hearing examiner, its like the state process, if someone appeals then it goes to the Equal Opportunities Commission, they have an on-line digest of decisions on the website. You can get an idea of just how active the Equal Opportunities Commission and Department of Civil Rights have been in protecting rights of every Madisonian. They take this issue seriously. There have been a a number of conversations by staff, not just about the excellent observations on blog but also newspaper article about licensed establishment that are using practices to screen out or in patrons. There were a number of factual inaccuracies in the newspaper, he will leave that to the people interviewed to correct. This is a serious issue that the professional staff will address and he is proud to be a bridge with this body and the Equal Opportunities Commission.
Woulf asks how a potential action by the Equal Opportunities Commission or action taken through the Department of Civil Rights would come to the ALRC.
Allen says that the revocation authority is for alcohol related and license related activities but there is a catch all phrase that says they have to comply with all other regulations of the City of Madison and to violate Equal Opportunities Commission Ordinances could subject them to action before the body. There is no explicit language about the Equal Opportunities Ordinance, but usually they would wait til the Equal Opportunities Commission adjudicated a case to find out if there was a violation of the city ordinance because the City doesn’t want to adjudicate twice. EOC has the expertise. They could always add compliance with the ordinance as a specific reason for revocation, but how many ordinances do you want to do?
Lisa Subeck says she was briefly on the EOC, and that no one is going to file a complaint and they are not filing a complaint at the moment. However, EOC takes up policies, can ALRC kick something over to them, not really, but could the alders ask the Equal Opportunities Commission to review this case and the id policy and the concerns raised about that. I understand there are accuracies and inaccuracies, but they should start with it, we as alders can somehow get that on Equal Opportunities Commission agenda. I don’t want to let this go, there are patterns that go on and we can’t pin point incidents, here there is policy and an incident that are worthy of discussion and we could promote important discussion. The Equal Opportunities Commission also educates and this could be a good opportunity for education with bar owners who might not be thinking about this, not sure if a formal way to do that or not.
Allen thanks Subeck and says that today he had conversations with the Department of Civil Rights and Woulf and there is the meeting next week with various reps in city government to address the concerns and the Equal Opportunities Commission will discuss in addition to general subject matter. He also reminds them that just like in in housing the DCR could hire outside testers and if he was a licensed bar owner he would think about that coming down the road.
Thomas Sieger says it is very disconcerting that the UW was used for not so subtle discrimination to keep out people who were not UW studetns or alumni. The assumption is any operator would have ability and responsibility to address disorderly patron and agrees with Subeck that is is appropriate for the Equal Opportunities Commission to look into further and provide clear enforceable guidance and that this is unacceptable.
Farley says that all that we discussed is excellent and in the work he has done in culture change he has learned that policy does not drive culture change, it’s a bottom up grassroots effort, policy can enable that and ensure that takes place, but writing articles and things like that will help too. This is a moral issue for the community and these are things that have to happen, he applauds them for getting out there and hopes other media outlets will discuss it and that there will be neighborhood discussion and business meetings. That is the catalyst that is going to get these types of things really to take hold, there has been a great effort, the Equal Opportunities Commission are going to be necessary and its a good step for all that we can do. So much else needs to be done and hopes they continue to write great pieces and others follow the example. He thanks Craver.
Sam Stevenson asks about past precedent to have Equal Opportunities Commission start an investigation or hire testers in absence of specific complaint.
Allen says that in public accommodations restaurants, bars, hospitals they have not done compliance testing, in housing they have gotten a grant from hud to allow them to hire independent testers, usually a mixed race or minority couple applying for housing and test with white couple or single person and if discrimination, the apartment rented an hour ago, and white person application accepted and processed, so eco has not done this to his knowledge in public accommodation in last 15 to 16 years but no reason they couldn’t do it. With cigarette sales teens were used and some jurisdictions have used them for alcohol, budget issue, have to pick the right person, not impossible- Equal Opportunities Commission would want to hear form members of this body,
Sam says that aware of some of the behaviors, this have been going fon for two years, have there ever been any complaints in the recent past
Allen says there are no complaints he knows about like the one they read about in the newspaper or blog, the bigger issue discussed is whether the bars that cater to a minority crowd are treated fairly, such as the discussion with R Place.
Hart says that they didn’t want to discuss this during or before R Place, but he knows from personal experience that this has been going on for many many years and as committee members we hear it implicitly and not so implicitly when applicants make a point to tell us they will not not play hip-hop or they want a crowd that looks like Alder Verveer, Tom Farley and Mr. Langraf. They are letting us know who they want in the crowd, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, what the committee chooses to do with this is up to you.
Bidar-Sielaff says that alder Verveer and she will be with meeting to discuss this issue, this will not disappear into the bureaucracy and they are following it closely, Resnick will be there too and if at that if in that discussion things come up that are policy they would come back to the committee, this is an issue near and dear to her heart.
Farley asks if they could incorporate this as a discussion point in the tavern training exercises, again, extending the conversation to those, that would be great in terms of gauging the feel of bar owners and maybe tip the scale to more appropriate behavior model.
Voulf says that is a great suggestion, they have been alluding to it. The police department goes out with a fleet to put the pre-service on for bars and its awesome that we we do that but more info needs to be included and we need more participation, its been poor recently. They need to work with bar owners to encourage participation, that is a good suggestion and its on the mayor’s agenda and he is very concerned with this and that is why they are meeting on Monday, it got on his calendar quick considering what he has on his plate, they will follow up on this and it will not just get lost.
Allen Arntsen says that he thinks we should have it on our agenda, he wants to know what is going on with this and be engaged in the issue as it works through the city, it would be a a good thing to have Woulf give updates and it sounds like this is just starting and let’s make sure we are involved.
Hart says that if they took comment from people from the community there would be a dozen or so examples of this happening, that people are just so disgusted they didn’t bother to file a complaint and that they just won’t go back again.
Mike Verveer says he was going to say what Arntsen said, they need to put this item on the agenda again. For a minimum of an update for those involved in the conversation, he appreciates Soglin trying to get to bottom of this issue and coordinate city agencies, especially on the id policy and other issues like dress codes referenced earlier. This first came to the mayor’s and Woulf’s attention at a meeting of downtown tavern owners and managers and he heard at that meeting that there was confusion and disagreement about the policy. One person was very much advocating it and thought it was effective in reducing violence and another person very articulately said that the policy over the summer was blatantly discriminatory to those with health conditions. It has a disparate impact, but all the license holders if haven’t abandoned policy but will if the city tells them to – either the Equal Opportunities Commission, mayor, Department of Civil Rights, ALRC. Because a handful that started this a few months ago did so because they believe the police said it was ok to do and that it doesn’t run afoul of disparate impact. As Allen said, media was misleading, esp. on some in city hall, but he does believe it is accurate that the bar owners did believe that just like with dress codes, the police department, maybe not the chief or members of command staff, but that others said these policies were good, fine, or whatever and we all have to get on the same page and the ALRC has to be a partner in this. The mayor organized the meeting and hopes we have a report next month, that progress has been made on this issue.
David thanks Craver for stopping in and sharing his experience.
WHY DID THE ISTHMUS PULL THE ARTICLE
Do me a favor, speculate away! If nothing else, it’ll drive Jason Joyce at the Isthmus crazy and maybe he’ll finally admit why they pulled it. Clearly many in the community found value in the blog post. And they were very clear with me when trying to get me to blog there that they would let me have full control over my blog. Apparently, as I suspected, that is not the case. I really don’t understand why they pulled that blog post and don’t pull things that are inaccurate factually or so much of the crap Blaska writes. Joyce certainly won’t answer the question and apparently it drives him nuts that I dared to ask the question on my facebook page. Yet, he refuses to answer any questions publicly or privately.
Obviously Sconzie answered above, but I do think there is a different answer that has to do with advertisers.
THANKS JACK
I’m not always a fan of everything Jack Craver writes and it drives me nuts when he gets facts wrong, and that the Isthmus doesn’t care about that but . . . thanks Jack “Sconz” Craver for sharing your experience in a blog post. Much appreciated! Go bloggers! Keep up the good work Sconzie!
TELL YOUR STORY/COMMUNITY MEETING
I’d like to start collecting similar stories, I know they are out there and I have heard them and if the Isthmus won’t blog them, we can. Also, we are having a meeting on the 27th at 7:00 to discuss a community response. If you are interested in joining the listserve or coming to the meeting let me know or join the facebook group to get more updates. Work in progress, working out details, but there are a group of about 20 people who are interested in not letting this go, once again, in our community. I suspect that list will grow quickly with a little organizing. I really hope people show up next month at the ALRC and share their experiences with the committee and help finish what that article and Sconzie’s post/lack of post started.
