A Washington D.C. restaurant and nightclub has changed its dress code after several guests complained that the rules were applied in a racist way.
At 10:30 p.m. on the night of the gathering, Gordon showed up at the restaurant. His friends were already inside, but the bouncer refused to let him enter because he was wearing sneakers.
Gordon sent a text to his friends inside to let them know he wasn’t allowed in. This is when his friend, Yasha Callahan, noted that a group of white men in tennis shoes was at the bar.
“They all have sneakers on,” Callahan told Fox News. “One guy had the same sneaker style that [Gordon] had.”
Gordon eventually got inside with the help of a friend, but the group moved to another bar down the street.
Gordon has no issue with the restaurant’s dress code, but said it was a problem “if it’s not being applied universally.”
Ayyaz Rashid, the managing partner of the restaurant group that runs El Centro D.F., changed to “no-sneakers” policy and fire the bouncer after the outcry following Gordon’s incident.
Celebrity chef Richard Sandoval, of Sandoval Restaurant Group, has a “zero tolerance for anything discriminatory,” Rashid told Washington Post.
Rashid added that patrons at the bar who wear sneakers were likely earlier dining at the restaurant, which does not have a dress code.
According to Rashid, the dress code policy in El Centro D.F. was similar to other establishments in the D.C. area, but Sandoval Restaurant Group will still perform an extra training to discuss this issue, to make sure [employees] understand what is right, what is not right.”
“I am a person of color myself,“ Rashid said. ”So to hear that I would be enforcing such policies, it’s pretty personal to me.”
Callahan was satisfied to learn about the changes but was upset that the restaurant did not act on earlier complaints.
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