Orange County restaurant versus 3 flamboyant young gays -- who is in the right?

[Dan Druff]

The backstory:

Siena Cucina Italiana, a restaurant attached to the Balboa Inn in Newport Beach, CA, was in the news recently, and not for a good reason.

Two videos emerged of a big middle-aged guy physically throwing out two young, flamboyant gay patrons, who along with another friend, were told to leave the establishment and had been arguing about it.

Angel Bonilla, Colton Moyer and Clement Serafin went into the restaurant at 8pm on Apri 13, and sat at the bar, but were quickly told by the middle-aged female bartender that they needed to show ID. Apparently they produced ID, but one of the IDs was judged to be "fake", and the three were told to leave. Instead, they stayed and argued about it (it is not clear how long), claiming that the IDs were real, and that they suspected this ID thing was a ruse to avoid serving them due to their sexual preference.

The bartender then allegedly told them to "get out', supposedly used an anti-gay slur, and then summoned a "security guard" to forcibly remove them while they were still arguing. (This part was not caught on camera, so it is not possible to corroborate.)

However, a video does show a big guy in a white shirt (though not in any kind of uniform) showing up, grabbing Colon Moyer out of his chair, and physically tossing him out the door. Angel Bonilla was repeatedly saying to the guy, "Are you kidding me?", to which the big guy replied, "You're next", and indeed grabbed Angel, and tossed him out the door even harder.

Here are the two videos:





A lawsuit was just filed over this.

You can read a little more about it in this LA Times story: http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-p...426-story.html


The two questions at hand:

1) Was the "fake ID" claim really a ruse to avoid serving gay customers, or was the restaurant simply acting within its rights to refuse service to people it suspected (even incorrectly) were holding fake IDs?

2) If the patrons argued instead of leaving when told, did the restaurant have a right to physically eject them by force?

Interestingly, there is a police investigation over this, and police still don't know who the big guy in the white shirt was, and they're asking for the public's help (lol).

Knowing that cell phone video depicting only part of an incident can be highly misleading, I chose not to rush to judgment, and looked into it a bit myself.

I will post my findings/opinion in the next message.

[HoodedN]

Didn't read but I'm gonna go ahead and side with the restaurant.

[Dan Druff]

Here are my findings:

1) I went to read the Yelp reviews for this restaurant. Predictably, there are about 100 recent reviews bashing the restaurant simply for the news coverage of the alleged gay bashing. So I skipped past those, and started reading the reviews from beforehand. Not only were they almost universally bad, but people repeatedly complained about that female bartender:

Horrible service, bad food. Waitress/Hostess/Bartender was swearing and screaming inappropriate things the entire dinner and OVERCHARGED everyone in my group card's. Not to mention she needed an attitude check every time she waited on our table.

Came here for the first time ever to drink but the service was horrible, I went to the restroom first and the bartender gave my fiancé the nastiest look ever, I don't want to say it's because he is hispanic looking but it looked like it was because of that. She was flirting it up with a guest and as well gave us a look and they're lucky we didn't start anything because it would've been bad. Don't come here, all they do is criticize and charge you too much

If I could give it zero stars I would. I walked in with a few family members who needed to use the bathroom and were at their limit. The bartender promptly came over, talked to us as though we were trash, and sent us on our way so her friend could use the room. I have never been treated that way in my life, and when I told her so, she proceeded to voice disrespect for veterans too. Avoid this place unless you like hanging with entitled rich assholes.

Wow, the bartender could have killed my friend! Granted I'm sure she didn't do it on purpose, but when he was almost done finishing his beer, he noticed there were shards of broken glass in the bottom of his pint glass? Seriously. When he showed the bartender/waitress the situation, she simply took the glass, like nothing wrong had happened. Being astutely polite, he asked if management had been informed, so that no others would fall upon the same fate. Hearing this she got angry and vindictive, offering eight dollars in exchange for the mistake. He left the money on the table, to remind her of her poor behavior. If he had continued to finish his beverage, he would be in the hospital now with doctors pulling broken glass from his mouth or internal organs. All he wanted was an apology, but she refused to admit her mistake. In all the years that I have frequented restaurants and bars, I have never seen poorer customer service.

There are others like these. Even if you want to dismiss the bathroom-related ones (maybe it's located in an area where people are always stopping in to use the bathroom without dining there), I saw a number of other complaints about the bartender. Go see for yourself.

There are other seemingly credible reviews which mention shady practices such as upcharging, double charging, and extraneous (and undisclosed) "credit card fees" being charged to people.

The (pre-incident) Yelp reviews are here: https://www.yelp.com/biz/siena-cucin...t_by=date_desc

So suffice to say that it seems like the bartender is a complete cunt, and the restaurant sucks.



2) There are some claims that the bartender is actually the owner or part-owner of the restaurant, though the lawsuit filed is against owner Michel Pourmussa, who is male.

3) It appears that the big guy in the white shirt is NOT an employee of the restaurant, but is rather a regular patron who was doing a favor for the bartender (who directed him to do so). This is not verified, but from what I can tell, it is probably true. This would also explain why it's been tougher to identify him.

4) It does not appear that the gays were given a final warning to leave on their own, nor were they ever threatened with physical removal if they didn't. Looks like the cunt bartender just called over the big dude to grab them and physically eject them.

5) It does not appear that the gays were causing a disturbance to where it was necessary to forcibly remove them immediately, but rather were arguing about what they believed to be discrimination against them.

6) It does appear that the second gay guy who was thrown out played up his "injuries" in extreme drama queen fashion. While I believe it probably hurt to hit the ground in the way he did, the crying didn't seem sincere, nor did his claim that his head hurt (it doesn't seem that his head ever hit the pavement from the way he's lying on the ground, nor do we see any sign of injury to his head.) I believe this was likely being played up for the video and lawsuit that they knew they'd file.


Final conclusions:

1) Bartender is a huge bitch and an awful person

2) Gays didn't do anything wrong aside from not leaving when asked to leave (they should have left and taken legal action later, if they felt discrimination was taking place). Why ever stay at a restaurant where you're told you're not wanted?

3) Fake ID thing probably was bullshit, and the bitch probably just didn't want flamboyant queers sitting at her bar

4) Yelp reviews allege that restaurant has bland food, horrible slow service, and is rife with credit card scams, and these all seem to be from legitimate Yelpers without a history of fake reviews.

5) The crying guy in the video is a huge drama queen and the crying was probably fake, but I still can't feel sorry for the restaurant here.


The gays were in the right, and I hope this place goes under.

[Dan Druff]

Response from the Balboa Inn's attorney:

Rest assured, this establishment does not condone discrimination against anyone and as a matter of fact this hotel has hosted gay weddings in the past and is completely against any type of discrimination whether [it’s] religious, cultural, sexual or racial.

I think the guy is telling the truth about the hotel previously hosting gay weddings. I'm guessing that if there is discrimination, it's on the restaurant side, committed by that bartender, who was likely doing it on her own (though obv it's worse if she's an owner, manager, or part-owner).

What I'm not understanding is why it's so hard to locate that big guy who threw them out. Are the restaurant employees swearing to the police that they don't know his name? And if he's just a patron who got too aggressive in his desire to "help" the bartender, why isn't the Balboa Inn's attorney clarifying that he was just a patron, and not an employee? That would make them look 100x better, but they're not saying that.

So weird.

[limitles]

No chance they were thrown out for being gay. Business is business but that doesn't apply to underage patrons, those who have over consumed, or become a problem.

I watched the Masters at local brewpub, got chummy with the guy next to me and we kept going well after the tourney was over. Playing pool a bit later I went for refills and was refused service. I don't know if it was the time I'd been there or if I was getting loud but bars can be held responsible for various things and they have every right to refuse service

[Suicide King]

If the ID is real then Plop has a real case.

[MumblesBadly]

No chance they were thrown out for being gay. Business is business but that doesn't apply to underage patrons, those who have over consumed, or become a problem.

I watched the Masters at local brewpub, got chummy with the guy next to me and we kept going well after the tourney was over. Playing pool a bit later I went for refills and was refused service. I don't know if it was the time I'd been there or if I was getting loud but bars can be held responsible for various things and they have every right to refuse service

They don’t have the right to discriminate based on sexual preference, but they can refuse to serve more alcohol to a patron they think has had too much to drink and could cause trouble related to drunkenness.

[Brittney Griner's Clit]

When OSA told me this site was obsessed with gay people I didn't believe him. Now I'm wondering if something else he told me was true.

giggling

[limitles]

No chance they were thrown out for being gay. Business is business but that doesn't apply to underage patrons, those who have over consumed, or become a problem.

I watched the Masters at local brewpub, got chummy with the guy next to me and we kept going well after the tourney was over. Playing pool a bit later I went for refills and was refused service. I don't know if it was the time I'd been there or if I was getting loud but bars can be held responsible for various things and they have every right to refuse service

They don’t have the right to discriminate based on sexual preference, but they can refuse to serve more alcohol to a patron they think has had too much to drink and could cause trouble related to drunkenness.

Gay's are not new to L.A. Anyone in in a service position cares about you paying up, behaving yourself and being legal age. Serving a "minor" is potential trouble for a restaurant/bar

[hongkonger]

Orange County

/thread

[gut]

As someone who works in this industry, this story is interesting. I've had a couple instances of ID'ing trannies, where their ID pic is of their born gender, but here they are as a different gender. Then you start to weigh the issues...."Do I risk getting busted here if this is a state liquor 'agent', or do I risk a discrimination lawsuit by denying service?"

I went with the yes i'm serving option each time and was fine...but it is interesting. Cmon folks, your ID should look like HOW THE FUCK YOU LOOK RIGHT NOW.

[mulva]

flamboyant and creepy are to words no 40+ straight man should ever use.

they seem to be used wit regularity here, and least the creepy one. i think dirty b started that trend.

[shortbuspoker]

No chance they were thrown out for being gay. Business is business but that doesn't apply to underage patrons, those who have over consumed, or become a problem.

I watched the Masters at local brewpub, got chummy with the guy next to me and we kept going well after the tourney was over. Playing pool a bit later I went for refills and was refused service. I don't know if it was the time I'd been there or if I was getting loud but bars can be held responsible for various things and they have every right to refuse service

They don’t have the right to discriminate based on sexual preference, but they can refuse to serve more alcohol to a patron they think has had too much to drink and could cause trouble related to drunkenness.

They don't even have to be drunk. I ran a bar for three years during my college days and we could legally refuse or eject any person for any reason without repercussion as long as it wasn't blatantly discriminatory. That said there is a huge gray area that can be exploited.

I literally got the nickname racist Tim because I would have to kick out black guys for groping woman in the dance floor. We would also run a play where one of us would kick out a guy that was with a chick just to up the odds of fucking her. I also had an unwritten but well known rule that I would punt anyone that came in wearing patchouli.