A Black couple has launched a racial discrimination lawsuit against a Tennessee restaurant, alleging they were kicked out for smelling like weed — even though they don’t indulge in the drug.
The lawsuit, submitted to a federal court in Tennessee last Thursday, asserts that Dechandria Bass and her boyfriend, Dwan Brown, of Coahoma County in Mississippi, met up with family members at Houston’s Restaurant in Memphis, on Aug. 7.
According to NBC News, shortly after their arrival, Kayla Hollins, a white restaurant manager, allegedly approached the group’s table and asked the pair to leave, asserting they smelled like marijuana.
The lawsuit claims that Bass and Brown initially declined to respond, assuming Hollins was speaking to someone else.
“I asked you to leave and come back tomorrow because you smell like weed,” Hollins reportedly said minutes later when she returned to the table with a police officer.
The lawsuit lists the defendants as Hollins — who, according to a woman who answered the phone at the establishment on Wednesday, “no longer works for the company” — the restaurant, its parent business, Hillstone Restaurant Group Inc., and general manager Ralph Price.
On Wednesday, Carlos Moore, the couple’s attorney, said his clients don’t use marijuana and hadn’t done so the day Hollins kicked them out of the establishment. He called the accusations “Jim Crow era 2.0 — a new way to discriminate” in the restaurant business.
“If this was not blanket racial discrimination,” Moore said, NBC reported, “I think Houston’s managers would have had to ask them where they were from and did they have any prescription for marijuana before accusing them of smelling like weed.”
Tennessee law largely prohibits marijuana for recreational or medical purposes, with few exceptions, such as minor amounts of CBD oil.
However, Moore noted that it is acceptable to consume medical marijuana in Mississippi, where his clients are from. He said the restaurant manager who dismissed the couple from the establishment did not pursue that line of inquiry.
According to the lawsuit, Bass and Brown request damages of at least $500,000 apiece for humiliation, embarrassment and emotional distress.
In August, WHBQ-TV of Memphis reported that a female manager requested another Black couple — a high school principal and police officer — leave the establishment because she thought they smelled like marijuana, according to NBC.
“Our Company does not discriminate as anyone who has ever dined at our restaurant can attest,” Hillstone Restaurant Group said Wednesday in a statement, NBC reported. “We are proud [that] guests of all races choose to dine regularly at Houston’s and appreciate our hospitality.”
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