SALON

Saturday, Dec 22, 2012 4:00 PM UTC

Most racist restaurant in America?

A new lawsuit alleges that a Kentucky Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge denied access to African Americans

By

Topics: AlterNet, Kentucky, Louisville, Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge, Racism,

Most racist restaurant in America?
This article originally appeared on AlterNet. It has been corrected since it first published.

AlterNet The Maker’s Mark Bourbon House and Lounge in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, used to be a decently classy place, the type of glass-enclosed, wood-paneled establishment striving for a level of authenticity beyond the reach of a chain restaurant named after a bourbon label.

Late this past August, however, the Bourbon House and Lounge officially became one of the most despicable restaurants in the country when it denied African Americans access to a public event held at the site.

Here’s what happened: Andre Mulligan and his brother went to the Maker’s Mark Bourbon House and Lounge on August 17 to speak with officials from Maker’s Mark bourbon company about a public event to be held at their restaurant the next day. At the meeting, Maker’s Mark wanted to know “the ratio of ‘black people’ to ‘white people’ attending the event” explains Mulligan in his lawsuit against the establishment.

Mulligan and his brother explained that the party-goers would be ‘”100 percent African American,” to which information the officials from Maker’s Mark said essentially, nope, you can’t hold an event at our lounge — a clear violation of not only the states’ laws, but also all human decency and basic 21st century codes of ethics and respect.

Given the clear illegality of the managers’ claims, Mulligan, his brother and some of their friends showed up the next night anyway for the event. What happened next, according to the lawsuit, is that the restaurant’s bouncers yelled at Mulligan and his friends to “shut up,” told them they couldn’t enter the bar and then threatened to call the police and have them “locked up” if they didn’t leave the area around the bar — also known as the public sidewalk. As this is all occurring, the bouncers are politely welcoming white diners to enter the bar. OK, so the complaint actually doesn’t say anything about how the bouncers greeted the white patrons, but you can reasonably infer that they were polite, given that their job is to welcome (all) customers into the bar.

Now, before anyone attempts to use the incorrect the-bar-is-private-property excuse, let’s be clear. Barring any patrons based on skin color is an explicit violation of the Kentucky Civil Rights Act, which states: “It is an unlawful practice for a person to deny an individual the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of a place of public accommodation, resort, or amusement, as defined in KRS 344.130, on the ground of disability, race, color, religion, or national origin.”

And what is “a place of public accommodation?”

As defined in KRS 344.130, “place of public accommodation, resort, or amusement” includes “any place, store, or other establishment, either licensed or unlicensed, which supplies goods or services to the general public or which solicits or accepts the patronage or trade of the general public.” In other words, a restaurant, such Maker’s Mark Bourbon House and Lounge.

Mulligan is suing the restaurant and its operating company, Cordish Operating Ventures, for violating the Kentucky Civil Rights Act.

More Laura Gottesdiener.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 94 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from AlterNet, an award-winning news magazine and online community that creates original journalism and amplifies the best of hundreds of other independent media sources.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
248 points249 points | 10 comments
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
233 points234 points | 49 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
185 points186 points | 1 comment
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
57 points58 points | 8 comments
vote
Today in How Did I Miss This: Iowa GOP is pushing to cut the pay of the remaining Supreme Court Justices that voted for legalization of gay marriage.
48 points49 points | 5 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations