Men decry tavern's ban on dreadlocks
By ELIZABETHE HOLLAND Post-Dispatch

Age, as it turned out, wasn't the problem. The men's hairstyles were, Carter said.

"He started moving toward me, so I figured I'd get my ID out. ... That's when he said it," said Carter of the May 17 incident. "He said, 'Sorry, you can't come in, sir. We have a no-dreadlocks policy.' I didn't say anything at first. My jaw just dropped open. ... It was sickening."

Carter, 29, and Williams, 27, are African-American men who wear their hair in dreadlocks. Dreadlocks are formed naturally when hair is allowed to mat, tangle and grow intertwined when not combed. While people of all colors wear dreadlocks, the style is most popular among African-Americans.

Carter and Williams are convinced they were prevented from entering the bar for racist reasons.

"That had never happened any place before," Williams said.

Carter and Williams arrived after 11 p.m. at the St. Louis tavern at 6300 Clayton Road intent on having drinks with friends who had been at a wedding and the following reception at the Artists' Guild in Clayton. Once told they couldn't enter the bar, Carter said he began arguing with the man at the door, who was accompanied by two off-duty St. Louis city officers working at the pub.

Carter, of St. Louis, and Williams, of Rock Hill, became angry and uttered obscenities, but friends quickly ushered them to a car to leave, both said.

Several wedding attendees, including the bride, challenged the man at the door, and tempers flared. When people from the wedding tried to re-enter the bar to tell others what had occurred, they were not allowed back inside.

Three weeks later, Carter and Williams remain angry.

"Seeing as they had the nerve to do it, I wouldn't expect them to apologize," Carter said.

Jack Lueders is president of the corporation that operates the Cheshire Inn, a restaurant and bar alongside the Cheshire Lodge. Lueders leases the property from Dan Apted, who owns and operates the Cheshire Lodge.

Lueders did not witness the incident but said he doesn't believe his employees or the off-duty police at the scene did anything wrong. He said he was told that the men with dreadlocks were unruly, argumentative and had used offensive language. That behavior - not the dreadlocks - prevented their entry to the bar, he said.

The Cheshire Inn does have a dreadlocks policy, however, and Lueders said he believes it came up at the door.

Lueders said the business has a policy in which people with dreadlocks are denied access if their hair is determined to be "dirty and stinky." The business developed the policy initially as a means to prevent a homeless man in the area from coming into the bar, he said. That man is African-American and wears dreadlocks.

Lueders insisted the policy is not race-related.

"You can't wash that hair, and it stinks, and we're a crowded bar, and we don't want stinky people in the bar," he said, explaining the policy. "If you look nice and you're obviously clean, nobody's going to go up and smell your hair."

Nobody attempted to smell Carter's or Williams' hair, said Carter, who added that people with dreadlocks do, indeed, wash their hair.

Lueders said he was told the men were dressed well. Both wore collared shirts, ties and dress pants, clothing they had worn to the wedding and reception.

"I think the problem was with the person carding," Lueders acknowledged. "He didn't know whether to let them in or not and wanted to get a manager to make that decision. That's my guess. So they were detained (and) they didn't want to be detained."

Carter and Williams maintain they were well-mannered when they arrived and that they were told right away they could not enter due to their dreadlocks.