Sutton had been the bar’s manager for almost two years. In a 2017 social media post, Shmanske called Sutton a member of his “dream team” and part of the “hardest working staff” he knew.
But one day in late June, Sutton got the text about a “crowd shift” around 1 p.m.
In the followup call, Shmanske said Moosehead was getting “too dark,” Sutton says. Sutton said the owner told him the bar was attracting more black patrons than Shmanske wanted and had too many black people working there.
“He said they (the bouncers) were all trash and didn’t work,” Sutton recalls. Depending on the time of year, the bar had between 12 and 15 bouncers, including eight to 10 African-Americans, according to Sutton. The bar had about seven bartenders, including three African-Americans.
“He was like ‘you don’t have the people in the bar that I want in the bar,’” Sutton said. “There was no need to carry on the conversation anymore. … I told him I’m not going to fire anybody because of their skin color. You’re going to have to fire me if you want that done.”
That’s what happened. On July 2 Sutton was fired, the former manager said. The rest of the staff, including the nine black bouncers and three black bartenders, were told to fill out applications for employment again, even though they worked at Moosehead already, according to six former and current employees of Moosehead.
If a person got a call back, he or she was still working at the Five Points bar. Employees who didn’t get a call back weren’t employed anymore. When the whole process was done in July, at least two were asked to return, but only one was considering returning.
= new reply since forum marked as read
