Black medical student, Kim Ohaegbulam to sue NYC bar for barring him from using restroom because of skin colour

Kim Ohaegbulam, 28, claims that a manager at the historic Landmark Tavern in Hell’s Kitchen barred him from using the restroom because of the color of his skin, the Daily News reports.

The bar on W. 46th St. has been pouring drinks since 1868, but Kim Ohaegbulam said he thought he had stepped into a time machine taking him back to the 19th century during a recent visit.

"I’ve never experienced anything like this in my 28 years, I’ve never been denied the use of a bathroom anywhere," said Ohaegbulam, who grew up in Alabama and Florida.

Ohaegbulam, a student in the M.D. and Ph.D. program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, ended up receiving a summons for disorderly conduct for making “unreasonable noise” after the manager called police.

He is planning to file a lawsuit against the Landmark Tavern alleging he was the victim of racial discrimination, and the city for false arrest. "I don’t like to play the race card, but it is what it was,” he said. "It was a blatant form of racial discrimination. I’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen again at that establishment" "I’m a medical student but I'm also a black man. I felt like what happened to me is the same as what happened during the civil rights era and Jim Crow."

Ohaegbulam was celebrating the completion of a school project with two friends, a fellow medical student who is from India and a law student who is Asian, who were buying the drinks. His friends used the bathroom, but when Ohaegbulam got on the line, he said he was stopped by the night manager who told him it was only for paying customers.

Ohaegbulam insisted that he had been drinking there for 45 minutes, and was backed up by his friends and even the bar’s security guard, but the manager refused to budge. "I told Don (the manager) that I had checked his ID on the way in," the security guard, who requested anonymity, told The News.

"Don has the type of personality, what he says goes" Ohaegbulam demanded to speak to the owner, Michael Young, and waited outside. When five cops arrived, a sergeant told him he could make a complaint “to the Better Business Bureau,” but he had to leave the area.

After Ohaegbulam persisted in stating his complaint, he was handcuffed and taken to the precinct stationhouse, where he received the summons. "It’s very unfortunate but not surprising that persons of color, particularly black and Hispanic males, endure this sort of unlawful conduct on a regular basis," said Ohaebulam’s lawyer, Eric Sanders.

A lawyer for the bar insisted there was never an issue of Ohaegbulam using the bathroom, claiming the manager called police because Ohaegbulam was “inebriated” and “menacing.” The lawyer, Robert Ferrari, said the manager told him the bar “has many black customers” and was sticking by his claim that Ohaegbulam was “hanging out” at the bar but was not a customer.

Ferrari said the Landmark Tavern has a surveillance camera, but every two weeks it tapes over the previous recording, so he didn’t think there was a record to prove or disprove anymore whether Ohaegbulam was a customer. But Ohaegbulam said his witnesses, and the bar receipts, will prove he is telling the truth.

Ferrari said the Landmark Tavern has a surveillance camera, but every two weeks it tapes over the previous recording, so he didn’t think there was a record to prove or disprove anymore whether Ohaegbulam was a customer. But Ohaegbulam said his witnesses, and the bar receipts, will prove he is telling the truth. "This was blatant discrimination and it’s just wrong," he said

Source: Daily News