Members of the city’s Equal Opportunity Commission took preliminary steps to address controversial admittance policies in certain campus-area Madison bars, which some have charged are discriminatory.
Some campus-area bars have decided to no longer accept state-issued IDs as valid forms of proof of age for entrance – a policy which some critics have deemed discriminatory.
Heidi Wegleitner, a Madison-area lawyer, said this policy is not being enforced fairly and consistently in the meeting Monday.
She related a story in which a friend of hers was able to gain entrance to a bar using a state ID despite the fact that the establishment had signs posted prohibiting the use of this form of ID for entrance.
“This is not uniform application,” Wegleitner said. “That is intentional discrimination.”
She also said other policies besides the policy on state IDs are discriminatory. She also accused certain dress codes of targeting black customers, with reference to a Logan’s Bar policy to only allow entrance with a University of Wisconsin student ID this past summer.
Mark Woulf, the city’s Alcohol Policy Coordinator, said he hoped to remedy the issue by educating bar owners on fair ways to address safety concerns.
“[Mayor Soglin’s] position is that striving for a safe community or safe establishment and preventing discrimination are not competing values or goals in our society,” he said. “To that end, we have to provide the bar owners with the tools to have a safe establishment without discrimination against the patrons.”
He said the city provides free tavern training for bar owners every few months. He added these meetings have been “very poorly attended” in recent months.
Woulf brought an initial draft of a letter he and Soglin plan to send to Madison bar owners. He said the letter laid out what would happen if bars continued to use policies found to be discriminatory.
In order for a policy to be considered discriminatory, citizens must first file a complaint, after which EOC or the Department of Civil Rights would take action, he said.
After this, the Alcohol License Review Committee may have the ability to revoke a bar’s liquor license, Woulf added.
Former District 2 Ald. Brenda Konkel came to voice her disapproval of both the various admittance policies as well as the city’s reaction to them.
She said the committee should not have to wait for citizens to file a complaint but should instead work with the police department, the mayor and alders to remedy the issue quickly.
“It should get resolved and it should get resolved right now, not in a month or two,” Konkel said. “These policies and these different mechanisms to keep certain people out of bars aren’t new.”
Both Konkel and Coco Bustamante, president of the commission, agreed that members would like to implement a strict policy against discriminatory policies.
John Quinlan, secretary of the body, also asked Woulf if it was possible to “err on the side of as strong language as possible to discourage [this policy]” in his letter to bar owners. Quinlan said he was most concerned about the potential for a disparate impact.
The group will discuss this policy further on Nov. 10 with representatives from the Madison Police Department.
