Students Say Temple Bar Staff Ignored Them

Fifteen Harvard Law School students have said they were treated unfairly when trying to be seated last week at Temple Bar--an event they say may have been a result of racial discrimination.

Members of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) say they had to wait an inordinate amount of time to get a table last Tuesday night at the popular Mass. Ave. bar and restaurant. The restaurant was only partially full, they claim.

The group's newly elected co-chair Shan M. Chang said she forwarded an e-mail message detailing the incident to APALSA's member list and other people she thought would be interested.

"We just want to let people know," Chang said. "They can make up their own mind whether it's bad service of discrimination."

The message has been circulated to several campus groups, including Diversity & Distinction.

Temple Bar has received calls from people who received the e-mail message.

Gerry Sheerin, co-owner of the bar and the manager on duty the evening the incident occurred, says the students had to wait for a table because it was not immediately clear to the hostess that the group intended to order appetizers and dinners--not just drinks.

"[This is] an unfortunate incident that should not have happened. It could have been any group of 15, it was not because they were Asians," Sheerin said.

APALSA has not filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, and Chang said, "we do not plan to at this point."

But members of the group did send a certified letter to Sheerin and the Temple Bar detailing their complaints.

According to Chang, the letter arrived on Friday and "said we felt that we didn't receive good treatment."

The letter did not say, however, that the APALSA members felt they were treated unfairly because they were Asian-American.

"There is no mention of discrimination [in the letter]," Sheerin said.

The APALSA group went to Temple Bar last Tuesday evening around 9 p.m. to celebrate the election of its executive board, said Sue W. Perng, former co-chair of the group.

Perng said the group waited approximately 10 minutes for a table before asking the hostess what was keeping them from being seated in the two-thirds-full restaurant.

"I spoke to the hostess and told her we'd be ordering dinner and appetizers," Perng said.

But Sheerin said the hostess was not immediately aware that the group--too large to sit at a table for 10--planned on ordering food.

This miscommunication created some confusion, Sheerin said. After a certain point in the night, the restaurant will seat patrons at tables even if they only plan to order drinks. But during the dinner rush, Sheerin said, the restaurant reserves tables for customers who will order dinner.

Perng says that an employee had started asking the group for identification to prove that the students were at least 21-years-old.

It is the restaurant's policy to check IDs at the door when the customers only plan to order drinks, Sheerin said.

"Normally, the waitress checks IDs at the table if they'll be ordering food. According to the hostess, [at this point] there was not mention of ordering food," he said.

Sheerin said the bar was also being particularly vigilant about checking identification that evening since it was also hosting an event for College seniors.

After waiting another 10 minutes, Perng said she asked to speak to the manager. Then, she said, the hostess returned and told the group the table they were waiting for would only seat 10 people.

Perng said when she spoke with the manager, she asked him why, once the group told the hostess it intended to order dinner, it was not seated immediately.

Perng said that Sheerin repeatedly said, "'We don't have to seat you.'"

But Sheerin said he could not imagine why the restaurant would turn away such a potentially lucrative table.

"We would be more than happy to seat 15 people for appetizers," he said. "Servers are more than happy to seat 15, because they are guaranteed a 15 percent tip."

But Perng said she was not pleased with Sheerin's response to her complaints.

"I felt that they were very rude and haughty," she said. "The manager had the same rude attitude."

Sheerin said, "When they approached me, the first thing they said was 'discrimination.' I wasn't as nice as I probably should have been because I was upset."

Sheerin said the complaint is the first of its kind at Temple.

"This is our livelihood. We think this is totally unfair," Sheerin said. "We can't afford to have a negative reaction."