A woman says she was kicked out of a downtown pub Monday night after kissing another woman.
Tansy Rudnicki was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day at The Old Triangle at around 9pm Monday when she and her female friend kissed.
Following the kiss, a bouncer came over and told Rudnicki and her friend they had to leave the bar, she told The Coast. Once outside, the bouncer told them the order “came from above,” she said.
“The bouncer said he had no good reason, he could tell we weren't too drunk. He just got an order from above saying us two ladies had to leave immediately or we'd be charged with trespassing,” Rudnicki wrote in a public Facebook post Monday evening.
The Old Triangle responded to criticism on Twitter Tuesday morning, saying the customers were removed for pushing a doorman and “groping in public.”
“[I]f you want to grope someone get a room, my bar isn't the place, and pushing my doormen is unacceptable. #cutthecrap,” the bar tweeted.
“I guess that depends on your definition of groping,” Tansy says. “ We had our arms around each other, but not feeling each other’s chest or bums.”
As for pushing the doorman, she says that’s not true. “He was a nice kid who let me skip the line after I came back after leaving for a while. I was with security as I was leaving, and to the best of my knowledge nobody pushed anybody.”
“If they had come over and just told us to stop it would’ve been more acceptable than just making us leave.”
Several people gave the pub poor reviews on the Old Triangle Facebook page following the criticism.
A couple hours later, the Old Triangle tweeted that if it was a bad call, the person responsible would be reprimanded.
Over the phone Tuesday, general manager Joel Chiasson told The Coast he was disappointed to hear allegations of homophobia on Facebook and Twitter.
“One of the waitresses working yesterday was gay, one of the cooks working yesterday was gay,” he said. “…The last thing we would ever do is discriminate.”
Chiasson wasn’t at the bar when the incident happened, but he watched the pub’s camera footage from Monday evening, and spoke to the manager and doorman involved.
“It was kind of a make out session and hands were going all over the place, and I did verify that by looking at the camera,” he said. “When the doorman went to speak with them about it, he got a hand in his face.”
“It was an actual scene, it wasn’t just a kiss.” The doorman was going to ask them to cool it, he explained.
It was only after one of the women touched her hand to the doorman’s face that they were asked to leave, he said. He didn’t see that part of the incident on camera.
“There was no call made based on discrimination. The call was made because she put her hand in his face.”
There were a couple hundred dollars on the customers’ bills, he said. Tansy wrote on Facebook that their bills were “hundreds of dollars.”
Chiasson said on St. Patrick’s Day the bar is under a lot of pressure from liquor inspectors to make sure customers aren’t too intoxicated.
He added that when people of the opposite sex make a scene, they are also asked to leave.
