NY Bar Settles Dress Code Complaint

The AP reports:

A restaurant that hosted a party for Barack Obama supporters on Super Tuesday has discriminated against blacks wearing hip-hop clothing and urban wear, the state attorney general charged Monday in a lawsuit.

The lawsuit made the claims against Tonic East the day a consent decree was filed settling the case.

The Manhattan bar-restaurant, through its lawyers, has agreed to pay $35,000 as damages, fines, penalties, attorneys' fees and costs of the probe.

It also has agreed to train its employees and impose a dress code that will not discriminate, court papers said.

The lawsuit said two black investigators from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office who wore baggy pants and sneakers were told they could not enter the establishment last September because of how they were dressed.

A week later, it said, similarly dressed white investigators were allowed in.

Cuomo's office said it began investigating after it received complaints from blacks who claimed they were denied admission to the bar based on violations of the unwritten dress code.

A Democratic Party happening.