Medical student claims he was stopped from using bar's bathroom because he is black
A black medical student claims the manager at a New York City bar wouldn't allow him to use the bathroom because of the color of his skin.
A black medical student claims the manager at a New York City bar wouldn’t allow him to use the bathroom because of the color of his skin.
Kim Ohaegbulam says that, on September 27th, he and some friends went to the Landmark Tavern in Hell’s Kitchen to celebrate the completion of a school project. Although his Asian friends had no issue using the facilities at the bar, when he tried to do the same, he claims he was stopped by a night manager and told the restrooms were only for paying customers.
Ohaegbulam says he told the manager he had been a drinking at the bar for 45 minutes and a security guard spoke up to corroborate his story, but the manager stubbornly refused to change his mind.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this in my 28 years; I’ve never been denied the use of a bathroom anywhere,” mused Ohaegbulam, who grew up in Alabama and Florida.
After the manager called the police, Ohaegbulam received a summons for disorderly conduct for making “unreasonable noise.”
The 28-year-old, who is enrolled in the MD and PhD program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, now plans to file lawsuits against Landmark Tavern alleging that he was a victim of racial discrimination and against the city for false arrest.
“I don’t like to play the race card, but it is what it was,” he explained to the New York Daily News. “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,” he continued. “I felt like what happened to me is the same as what happened during the civil rights era and Jim Crow.”
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