When it’s managed right, a bar can become a rallying place for a tightly knit community. A place where people can come together every week and get to know one another. A place where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came. Oh, wait, I think that last one was the theme from Cheers. Whoops.
Unfortunately, when a bar is poorly managed, you have shit like this: according to The Advocate, the owner of Portland’s The P Club has been ordered by a judge to pay $400,000 to a group of 11 trans patrons after he asked them not to return because he was worried people would think his bar was an LGBT club.
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ordered The P Club owner Christopher Penner to pay up after violating state law prohibiting discrimination against people on the basis of gender identity, as well as sexual orientation, according to KATU News. The state says that Penner told a woman named Cassandra that she and her transgender friends, who form The Rose City T Girls, must “not come back on Friday nights.” This was after the group was told by another bar that they were not welcome more than once per month, according to The Oregonian.
Oh, this poor dumb bastard. Ignoring for a moment that he made a ridiculously transphobic decision and it cost him $400,000, you’re in Portland. PORTLAND. That’s one of the most progresssive, LGBT-friendly places in North America, and your instinct is to make your bar less welcoming? I can’t with you.
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