Closed now. Like the former owners mind.
  • Closed now. Like the former owner’s mind.

What’s it cost to be a blatantly transphobic bar owner? In one Portland bar owner’s case, it costs $400,000.

The Oregon Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a 2012 decision by the state that the owner of the North Lombard Street bar formerly known as the P Club, Chris Penner, has to pay up for discriminating against a group of transgender women who used to frequent his bar on Friday nights.

The group of up to 40 women, known as the Rose City T-Girls, met regularly at the P Club for two years. In August 2012, Penner called one of the regular attendees and left her the following offensive message.

“Hello, my name is Chris. I’m the owner of the P-Club Bar and Grill. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I’m going to have to ask for you, Cass and your group, not to come back on Friday nights. People think that A) we’re a tranny bar, or B) that we’re a gay bar. We are neither. People are not coming in because they just don’t want to be here on a Friday night now.”

Penner apparently didn’t think he was in the wrong by leaving the message, but the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries did. And so does the appeals court.

“Oregonians deserve to be treated fairly under law,” Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian wrote in a news release in response to the decision. “Our agency is committed to protecting the civil rights of all Oregonians so that people are not denied employment, housing or access to public places based on who they are or who they love.”

Specifically, Penner violated the Oregon Equality Act of 2007 that says Oregonians may not be denied full and equal service based on sexual orientation, just as they cannot legally deny service based on race, sex, age, disability or religion. Duh.

7 replies on “Transgender Customers Will Get $400,000 from Bar That Discriminated Against Them”

  1. I worked for him for years. HE IS NOT A BIGOT. He made a terrible choice to leave the vm and let his bigoted trashy regulars pressure him to that point. He is paying for that but people should know he isnt a bad person. Just daft.

  4. Folks, it’s a quote. It’s a thing that let’s you know that somebody that isn’t the writer said a thing. They have those little marks at either end. They look like this: “[quote]”.

    Direct your outrage to the quoted bigot, not the person that quoted the bigot.

    Shit, doesn’t anybody read anymore?

  5. Actually, it was not a quote. The quoted bigot did not even use the word “transgendered” the author of the article did. They have now corrected this, so thank you.

  6. Just as an FYI, the author of this article originally used the word “transgendered,” non quoted, but has now fixed it, however they did NOT record this correction in the article. What I think Spaceman, you were talking about was the use of the word “tranny” by the bigot guy. Sorry that was confusing, I did read the article, and I am perfectly capable of understanding what quotes are. =) I was requesting that the NON quoted word “transgendered” be changed. Thank you for all the hate, I love knowing who is Transphobic so I can stay far away.

  7. It was, and I guess it was my mistake. I didn’t realize ‘transgendered’ was offensive (‘gendered’ is a very common term, adding that prefix seemed safe…) and there are entirely too many semantic land mines for the average, well-meaning outsider to trip over.

    Rest assured, I dislike everybody equally.

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