A transgender woman posted a video to Facebook over Labor Day weekend, saying that she and her friends were unfairly denied entrance to Clarke's Diner, 930 W. Belmont Ave., because they were trans and gay. Other individuals responded to the posting, saying that they too had not been let in to the late-night diner for any legitimate reason.
Sara Andrews, a transgender woman who lives in Florida but visits Chicago regularly, was leaving Berlin Nightclub, 954 W. Belmont Ave. with some friends in the early morning of Aug. 30. She said that her group was denied entrance by the Clarke's security guard, who blocked the door without saying why.
"I thought that he was kidding," said Andrews. "I was smiling, at first. I kept asking, 'You're joking right? You're kidding, right?'"
On the video, Andrews and her friends are standing in front of the restaurant. The diner's guards "Clarke's…Clarke's in Boystown…is refusing us service because we're gay," Andrews says.
"Except they won't say that, because we're on video now," adds a friend of Andrews.
The camera then zooms into a sign posted on the restaurant's door that says it reserves the right to refuse service for any reason. Andrews and her friends are then told not to obstruct the door.
Alex Lopez, a manager at Clarke's, said he was told that Andrews and her friends were not let in because they were being "rowdy" on the street, which Andrews denies.
"We were not being loud at all—that's what kills me," Andrews said. "We weren't being belligerent or acting crazy."
Andrews admitted that when she and her group were leaving Berlin, someone from across the street yelled, "Transvestite!" she yelled back, "No shit, Sherlock!" But she said it was unlikely the guard had even seen or heard the exchange.
After Andrews posted her video, a number of commenters said that they'd had similar experiences at Clarke's. Drag queen Sissy Spastik said he and a friend were denied entrance after one of their performances because the friend was wearing a mask from the show.
"I've never had a bad experience at Clarke's until that guard was hired," said Spastik. "In my five years of giving Clarke's business, I was never treated like this until that guard started working there."
Another time, Spastik and a friend were asked to leave, supposedly because they were being too loud, after spotting some friends in the window and going in to speak with them.
Lopez said that the Clarke's guards are there to protect its patrons and employees from disturbances, and said there is no anti-LGBT sentiment intended. "Most of our business comes from gay or trans people, probably 80%," he said. "We have the guards because we've been having a lot of people being bad out on the street, then coming in and insulting our employees and our customers. We've had people come in with tasers. It's dangerous out there."
But Spastik said that the security can't discern the difference between real danger and regular patrons of the neighborhood businesses: "You have to expect people of all walks of life to [set] foot in your restaurant, especially when you're in an LGBT community."
Spastik and some other regulars said the Clarke's guards deny entrance based on arbitrary standards. RaShaan Houston said that, about two months ago, he was with a friend, a drag queen, who was turned away for wearing shorts that were too short. He said no one in his party was being loud.
"At the time, I thought it was a fluke, a one-time thing," said Houston.
Clarke's does not have a dress code per se, according to Lopez. But he said that a patron might be turned away, "If they showed too much skin." He added that the restaurant does not have a written set of criteria delineating when to admit or deny entrance to a patron, but does leave the matter to the guard's discretion.
"You can't pick and choose who is allowed in based on physical appearance," said Spastik. "I could understand if we had been loud and crazy, but we weren't. We only wanted to eat."
"I've been going to that restaurant regularly for the last 12 years, and I'll never go again," added Houston.
See video posted on Facebook at the link: www.facebook.com/video.php .
