turbans at the annex: serious business
Feb. 3rd, 2008 02:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
substituteOur local lame bar, Pierce Street Annex, has revised their policies to allow turbans in the bar, after a Sikh complained and asked for an apology.
The article says: "Sanjum Paul Singh Samagh, 24, accompanied friends to the Pierce Street Annex bar last year, only to be turned away because his turban was deemed to conflict with a rule prohibiting hats."
Good, he can enter with his turban now.
What's not mentioned is why bars ban hats: it's to keep out black guys. American black guys almost always wear a hat going out at night. It's an old, known technique for keeping their presence to a minimum. It's similar to gay bars banning open-toed shoes "for safety" to keep down the number of women who show up to dance with gay guys.
For some time now, Pierce Street has been a destination for black guys from Riverside County who drive out here to be in Newport/Mesa instead of Riverside. I guess the management decided there were too many of them.
Bars are just a disaster in Southern California. Everyone drives home, and a bar can't make money unless you have at least two drinks, so the entire business relies on drunk driving. And then they make desperate attempts to keep a money-making "demographic" in the bar, which they can only achieve by violating discrimination laws and acting like assholes.
I liked the bars in SF and NY, where you could walk home if you wanted. I bet they have similar issues with the "mix of the crowd" though.
The article says: "Sanjum Paul Singh Samagh, 24, accompanied friends to the Pierce Street Annex bar last year, only to be turned away because his turban was deemed to conflict with a rule prohibiting hats."
Good, he can enter with his turban now.
What's not mentioned is why bars ban hats: it's to keep out black guys. American black guys almost always wear a hat going out at night. It's an old, known technique for keeping their presence to a minimum. It's similar to gay bars banning open-toed shoes "for safety" to keep down the number of women who show up to dance with gay guys.
For some time now, Pierce Street has been a destination for black guys from Riverside County who drive out here to be in Newport/Mesa instead of Riverside. I guess the management decided there were too many of them.
Bars are just a disaster in Southern California. Everyone drives home, and a bar can't make money unless you have at least two drinks, so the entire business relies on drunk driving. And then they make desperate attempts to keep a money-making "demographic" in the bar, which they can only achieve by violating discrimination laws and acting like assholes.
I liked the bars in SF and NY, where you could walk home if you wanted. I bet they have similar issues with the "mix of the crowd" though.
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Zhigaag
Date: 2008-02-07 10:34 pm (UTC)In Chicago: get a bit buzzed, or actually pretty buzzed; go to the El platform
and sober up a bit from the cold as you're waiting; and then
hop on the next El home. Just try not to nod off (the train rocks you soothingly) and end up missing your stop and/or transfer point.
Oddly: I never saw anyone, no matter how drunk, puzzling over which El route to take home.
Everyone that I saw could navigate the system practically by muscle memory.
* * *
However, out in the El-less suburbs, where the street grid is practically tiled with "sports bars", look out. They call it "Chicagoland", but I'd bet that it's more like a DUI Alphaville.