ATLANTA,None — A fight over whether a popular Buckhead bar practiced gender and racial discrimination in its seating practices is in court.
Buckhead bar discrimination fight reaches court
Former NBA all-star Joe Barry Carroll and another African-American man have said management at the Tavern at Phipps insisted they give up their seats to two white women and evicted them when they refused.
The incident happened five years ago, but the pair's lawsuit has reached a U.S. district court this week. Channel 2's Jeff Dore went to the Richard Russell Federal Courthouse, where lawyers expect to bring in witnesses over the next few days concerning allegations of discrimination.
Carroll and his lawyer friend, Joseph Shaw, said they were eating and drinking at the bar at the Tavern at Phipps when employees and managers asked them five times to give up their seats for two white women.
They said in their lawsuit they were the only black men in the bar and managers didn't ask any white men to give up their seats, but lawyers for the Tavern have said it has a color-blind policy of asking men to give their seats to women at the bar.
WSBTV
