Saloon owners allege city trying to drive away black patrons

The owners of Gabby's Saloon and Eatery in northeast Minneapolis filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Monday alleging that city officials are trying to drive away its African-American patrons by imposing sanctions against its liquor license.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim scheduled a 12:30 p.m. telephone conference for today to consider Gabby's request that he temporarily block those sanctions, which include a $10,000 penalty, a $15,000 charge for excess police calls, a special management plan to control patrons after they leave the riverfront bar, and the elimination of its popular free drink specials.

Gabby's claims in its lawsuit that it has operated a bustling business at 1900 Marshall St. NE. since 1986 without any problems from city licensing officials. That began to change about two years ago, the suit says, when the bar switched the music format in an upstairs nightclub on Thursdays and Saturdays from Top 40 to hip-hop.

Jeff Ormond, a longtime manager at Gabby's, said in a sworn statement that the bar has promoted its "Ladies Night" free-drink specials on Thursdays since 1987, often drawing capacity crowds. Even so, it had no licensing problems until its hip-hop nights began drawing mostly black customers, he said.

Ormond said Minneapolis Police Inspector Robert Skomra, commander of the Second Precinct, suggested that the bar might head off sanctions by dumping hip-hop for country-western music. Ormond said doing so would kill the business; Thursdays and Sundays account for about 60 percent of the bar's revenue.

At a meeting in November 2006, the suit says, city officials blamed Gabby's for criminal conduct that was occurring up to 12 blocks away from the bar. The city proposed slashing the bar's occupancy limit, tripling or quadrupling the $5 cover charge, dropping free-drink specials, changing the music format and barring patrons from wearing the baggy pants, white T-shirts and baseball caps favored by some African-Americans.

Gabby's refused.

City officials kept pressuring T.J. Management of Minneapolis, which operates Gabby's, to make changes, the suit says. Last spring, they threatened to take action unless Gabby's relented. They suggested the bar to stop serving alcohol at 11 p.m. and add six off-duty police officers, the suit says.

The city continued demanding changes, the suit says, not because of anything Gabby's did, but because the alleged behavior of some patrons offends some neighbors and requires police attention.

The suit contends that some downtown-area restaurants and bars generate more police reports than Gabby's, yet the city hasn't sanctioned other bars based solely on neighborhood issues and the drain on police resources.

Gabby's says the sanctions are a violation of its rights under the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution to due process, free speech and equal protection under the law. It also charges violations of the state administrative procedures and human rights acts. Gabby's wants temporary and permanent injunctions barring the licensing sanctions, plus unspecified financial damages.

In November, an administrative law judge found that the city lacked the type of violations that would allow it to revoke the bar's liquor license. But he said the city had proved its case for sanctions because the "fighting, public urination, public sex acts [and] loitering in the neighborhood by Gabby's patrons" interfered with the health, safety and welfare of neighbors.

Chris Gams, executive director of the Bottineau Neighborhood Association, disputed the allegations in Gabby's lawsuit. "It's not a racial issue. It's a behavior issue," he said. "I don't think it would make any difference to the neighbors, the color of the skin of the person peeing in their yard."

City Council members said they had expected Gabby's to appeal the sanctions, and they stayed imposing a condition that would lower the bar's capacity from 689 patrons to 438 until the outcome of that challenge. Council Member Diane Hofstede, who represents the area, said the findings of the license hearing speak for themselves. She said she's unaware of the music format of the bar or the type of patron who goes to the bar.

Council Member Paul Ostrow said that normally a bar owner contests city-imposed conditions to the state Court of Appeals. He called the claim of racial bias "both novel and baseless."

During council debate, downtown-area Council Member Lisa Goodman said she's been troubled by the legal stance of bar owners faced with enforcement actions. "Once we give them a license, does that mean we give them a right to do whatever they want?" she asked.

John Schulte, president of the Northeast Citizen Patrol, said the suit didn't surprise him. His group helped residents organize a protest that attracted more than 50 people late last summer.

"I think it's a delay tactic. They're not innocent," Schulte said. "I suppose they're trying to avoid the inevitable crackdown from the city because they're unable to control their crowds.

"When you have hundreds of cars parking all over the neighborhoods in the middle of the night drunk and rowdy and they say it's not their fault, well, it is, because your business attracted them there."

Staff writer Terry Collins contributed to this report. Dan Browning • 612-673-4493; Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438