News from Minnesota Municipal Beverage Association

By ABBY SIMONS and MARY LYNN SMITH,

Star Tribune

It's a bastion of bar culture: "Ladies' Night," staged to attract female customers by cutting their drink prices and cover charges.

It's also illegal gender discrimination, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

The department charged this week that by having ladies' nights, five Twin Cities establishments denied men the right to "full and equal enjoyment" of their businesses.

"Gender-based pricing violates the [state] Human Rights Act," Commissioner James Kirkpatrick said in a statement. But even though this marks at least the second time in 16 years that the department has cracked down on the practice, it apparently has continued because bar owners aren't sure it's illegal, and enforcement clearly has been
spotty.

The establishments charged won't be named until the cases are resolved, the department said.

In 1994, Gators, a now-defunct Mall of America club, resolved a human rights case by paying less than $500 to Steve Horner of Apple Valley. He had complained of having to pay a cover charge on ladies' night, and the
department said the club discriminated against him.

At the time, the department's deputy commissioner, Dolores Fridge, said, "We will pursue any and all individual complaints of gender discrimination concerning ladies' nights."

Since then, many bar owners apparently have forgotten about the dust-up, don't know the law or have decided the popular events are
worth the relatively small risk.

'Kind of old school'

With free drinks in hand, University of Minnesota student Missy Austin gathered this week with her friends for a ladies' night at Sally's Saloon and Eatery. "I guess ladies' nights are kind of old school, especially in this day and age," she said, when told about the discrimination complaint.

But she and her friends are OK with that: "We're all in college and we don't have much money."

And University of Minnesota student Ross Reynolds doesn't begrudge the ladies free or reduced-price drinks, pointing out that some bars, including Sally's, offer guys drink deals on other nights. "For the most part, a lot of guys end up buying girls drinks. So ladies' nights saves us money," he said.

Even a former head of the Human Rights Department, Minneapolis employment and civil rights lawyer Steve Cooper, doesn't seem offended.

"If you use gender as the reason for a decision, then it is on its face discriminatory," he said. "But on a practical level, it's a little bit of 'Who cares?' ... It's not like they're depriving people of a job, education or
something else that's important."

New York attorney Roy Den Hollander has for years made his living filing gender discrimination complaints for men, including himself.

Who cares? He does.

"[Men] have to pay more for the services [clubs] offer just because an accident of nature made them one sex or another?" he said. "That's the basis of discrimination, and it shouldn't be allowed."

The Human Rights Department acknowledges that Minnesota bars might continue to flout the law.

"Whether establishments would continue to have ladies' night is nothing that we can control," said the department's communications director, Jeff Holman.

But he added that the department will keep on responding to complaints that individuals make when they feel a bar's promotion has discriminated against them.

(Editor's Note: After the first go-around, many changed the name of their promotion to "Skirts & Bras night. If men wanted to wear these items, they could.)