A Midtown bar that was accused of charging cover charges only to non-white patrons and turning other minorities away under the guise of "dress code violations" is now the subject of a federal discrimination lawsuit.
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the owners and operators of 360 Midtown, which was formerly Gaslamp, at the corner of Brazos and Hadley streets.
Scandal embroiled the bar last year when three black men made the racism allegations last year.
Brandon Ball, Dan Scarbrough and Ken Piggee — all attorneys — said that when they approached the doors of Gaslamp, the doormen immediately told them that to enter, they had to pay $20.
Deciding against it, the trio went to a nearby bar and later walked by Gaslamp.
"We're looking, and there are white people going in and getting their hands stamped," Ball told the Chronicle in September 2015. "They were going in and not paying anything."
The three sat and watched the door for some time, they said last year, watching white customers enter free of charge and minorities get turned away. They said they spoke with the others as they were turned away.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
It alleges that Ayman Jarrah and his company, Land Guardian Inc., discriminated against African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American patrons "by charging such persons a cover charge to enter the establishment, while not imposing such a charge on similarly situated white persons, and denying such persons the right to enter the establishment while admitting similarly situated white patrons."
