ACLU files suit against Virginia Beach bar for prohibiting dreadlocks and cornrows

The Daily Athenaeum ^ | 01-19-2007 | AP

[the_devils_advocate_666]

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) --The Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is suing a bar owner in federal court and challenging his policy of barring people who wear their hair in cornrows, dreadlocks or twists.

The ACLU says the Kokoamos Island Bar, Grill and Yacht Club's policy amounts to racial discrimination because it singles out hairstyles usually worn by black customers.

The group filed the suit Thursday in U.S. District Court, Norfolk, against Kokoamos owner Barry Davis on behalf of Myron Evans and Kimberley Hines.

Evans was denied entry to the Kokoamos in June and Hines was turned way from the bar in August, an ACLU statement said.

Hines was with three white friends and was told she would not be allowed into the bar because of her dreadlocks, the statement said. Evans was with a group of 10 friends and was also turned away because he was wearing his hair in the same style, the ACLU said.

The ACLU sent a letter to Davis in October, telling him that his policy violates the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- which prohibits public accommodations from discriminating on the basis of race. A Richmond nightclub recently dropped a similar policy, the ACLU said.

The letter from ACLU of Virginia legal director Rebecca Glenberg also asked Davis to ''provide immediate written assurances that individuals will no longer be barred from any of your clubs by reason of a hairstyle associated with a particular race, religion, or ethnicity.''

Davis declined to take action, ACLU's statement said.

Davis could not immediately be reached Thursday.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> So, this bar ought to provide wigs for customers with dread rows and corn locks. Those really ugly wigs that come from half boarded up shops in depressed urban areas.

The answer is simpler and cheaper than that: post a condition of entry on the premises, then ask the patrons to please wear one of those hair protector nets that they make the cooks wear out back. Add a surcharge to the bill for the net.

That way the patrons can safely keep all of the greeblies that reside in their locks on their scalp and our of our food.

The hair net would either remove all basis for complaint, or permanently offend the patrons (who let's face it, do this to their hair to show off) who would then never return.

Mission accomplished, no casualties.