The LSU chapter of the NAACP is encouraging a boycott of all Tigerland bars in light of Thursday’s Reveille article about the bars’ dress codes.
NAACP President Melody Robinson said she urges students of all races, backgrounds and religions to stop going to the bars because of their “racist” policies.
“I don’t want patrons to keep going to these bars so they can be repetitively discriminated against,” Robinson said.
She said she hopes the boycott will affect the business at these bars, and if nothing changes during the summer, she plans to take the boycott a step further to a letter-writing campaign and involving the rest of the Baton Rouge media.
“Other people in Baton Rouge may not know Tigerland bars are discriminating,” Robinson said.
In a Web posting on the Reveille’s Web site at lsureveille.com, Joe Cook, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, said the ACLU has filed lawsuits in the past concerning discrimination at a bar and encouraged others to report cases of discrimination.
“We would certainly entertain complaints from students or anyone else who believe that they have been discriminated against on the basis of race or any other protected class,” Cook said in the posting.
Cook could not be reached by phone before press time.
Todd Duhon, owner of Tiger Bar, refused to comment as did Darin Adams, owner of Reggie’s.
“We do not have a dress code and we have not denied admittance to anyone,” said Mark Fraioli, owner of Fred’s for the past 22 years. “If someone is involved in a fight, then they will not be let back in.”
In reference to the NAACP’s boycott of the bars in Tigerland, Fraioli said he is concerned because his bar is located in Tigerland.
He said he fears Fred’s will be included in the boycott through “guilt by association.”
Fraioli said he hears rumors about other bars and dress codes but does not pay much attention to them.
However, there are students who do pay attention to them.
Berkil Alexander, a science education graduate student, said he thinks the ban of FUBU shirts is mainly directed at African-American people.
Shanna Moss, an environmental toxicology graduate student who is black, said before she came to the University, she was told not to go to Reggie’s and Fred’s because they were racist bars.
Some students agreed the boycott is a good idea and not an irrational reaction.
Jeremy Anthon, a bioengineering freshman, said while the bars have the right to say who can come, he agrees the NAACP also has the right to boycott these bars.
Tara Samanie, a secondary education junior, said she agrees with the boycott because the bars in Tigerland have discriminated for too long.
Shelly Guerin, a psychology junior, said she thinks there should be a behavior code, but not a dress code, so she supports the boycott.
Some students were concerned about how most of the dress code specifications were directed toward males instead of females.
Jessica Stablier, a psychology junior, said she does not understand how the bars can tell males what to where when females walk in “half dressed” all the time.
Anthony Ewers, a kinesiology junior and LSU track and field sprinter, said he and other members of the team have been denied access to Reggie’s with recruits because of his baggy pants.
“The same night I saw a white guy get in with jeans bigger than his shoes,” Ewers said.