Black sheriff's deputy alleges in lawsuit he was asked to prepay for breakfast at restaurant
A black sheriff’s deputy in Oregon is suing the owner and operator of a Vancouver, Washington, restaurant for allegedly requiring him to prepay for his breakfast.
Multnomah County sheriff’s deputy Brian Eason, 44, filed suit last week against Karson Inc., owner and operator of the Elmer’s restaurant franchise location where the incident allegedly occurred last December, the Oregonian and Reuters report.
Eason’s lawyer, Greg Kafoury, said the waitress who asked Eason to prepay for his meal apologized for the restaurant’s “discriminatory” policy.
Eason agreed, but returned later to complain about the policy, Kafoury said. When he did so, he asked a white couple eating there later the same day if they had been asked to prepay.
“They were somewhat incredulous that anyone would ask such a question. Of course, they were not asked to prepay,” Kafoury said.
Neither Karson nor the Elmer’s corporate office in Portland, Oregon, responded to a request for comment. But an Elmer’s spokeswoman told a local television station the chain has no policy requiring any customer to prepay for their meal.
The Oregonian reported that the the Vancouver restaurant told a Washington State Human Rights Commission investigator that Eason had to prepay because he was sitting in the lounge area. Eason’s complaint states that the white couple who told him they were not asked to prepay were also eating in the lounge area; the restaurant responded to this by saying that Eason had ordered alcohol while those customers had not.
Eason, who is also a real estate agent, is seeking $100,000 in compensatory damages, according to the complaint.
“It’s important that young black kids grow up in a world where they know that when they are discriminated against they don’t have to take it,” Kafoury said. “That was an important part of {Eason's} decision to file a lawsuit.”
