Racial bias trial bought by ex-NBAer and attorney starts for Tavern at Phipps

By Steve Visser

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Buckhead tavern's practice of asking men to give up seats at the bar for women brought accusations of demands for discrimination from both sides in a federal civil-rights lawsuit Monday.

Former NBA All-Star player Joe Barry Carroll and attorney Joseph Shaw contend that they were asked to give up their seats and eventually kicked out of the Tavern at Phipps because they were black; David Long-Daniels, the attorney for the restaurant, said in actuality the two men were demanding discrimination in their favor.

Long-Daniels said when the men were asked to relinquish their seats they declined, and evoked Carroll's former NBA status and Shaw's profession. When told of the restaurant's long-time practice of currying favor with female patrons by having men give up their bar stools for standing women, the men repeatedly refused, implying that other patrons should forfeit their seats, the lawyer said.

No other men were seated in Carroll and Shaw's section of the bar, Long-Daniels said.

"This has more to do with personality and ego than anything else," Long-Daniels told a majority-white jury at the beginning of the trial. "In the end, it is just about good manners."

Jeffrey Bramlett, lead attorney for Carroll and Shaw, said the men were humiliated when they were eventually escorted out the restaurant by an off-duty police officer who was moonlighting as a security guard. He said the restaurant had an unwritten policy of trying to dampen the black presence in the restaurant and instead wanted to cater to white businessmen and "well-endowed women."

On Aug. 11, 2006, Carroll, the former top pick of the 1980 NBA draft and now an investment adviser, met Shaw at the Tavern's bar and ordered drinks and appetizers. Two white women walked up to the bar and members of the Tavern's management asked Carroll and Shaw to give up their seats to the female patrons, according to the lawsuit. Carroll and Shaw declined, saying they were not ready to leave.

The Tavern's operating partner, Heather Dennis, called an off-duty Atlanta police officer who provided security and had Carroll and Shaw escorted out. Carroll and Shaw contend they were removed from the bar because they were black, constituting a violation of public accommodations laws.

Bramlett grilled Greg Greenbaum, CEO of the Tavern Corporation, on the witness stand in U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash's  Atlanta courtroom Monday.

Bramlett said Greenbaum feared white patrons would go elsewhere if the clientele tilted too heavily black. The view conveyed to management was "if we have blacks in the bar, then black thugs are sure to follow," Bramlett said.

He asked Greenbaum if he ever made that statement.

"There is no possible way I ever made that statement," Greenbaum said.

Greenbaum said the restaurant catered to women because they provided the bulk of the business; as the restaurant became more popular more men began showing up and taking bar seats. The women, he said, would show up and see a crowded bar and many regulars would leave, he said.

Bramlett asked Greenbaum if the restaurant primarily wanted to attract attractive women.

"We want all women," Greenbaum said.

Testimony continues Tuesday.