A group of 22 African-American bowlers from the Baltimore area filed a federal racial discrimination suit yesterday against the parent company of a restaurant on the Ohio Turnpike in Perrysburg, claiming that management and staff mistreated them.
The amateur bowlers, who participate in tournaments around the country, were returning from an event in Chicago on June 7 when they stopped at the Iron Skillet Restaurant, south of Toledo the Ohio Turnpike.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the northern district of Ohio on behalf of the ten-pin bowlers by the Equal Justice Foundation of Toledo, asks for unspecified damages and a change in management practices by Petro Stopping Centers, an El Paso, Texas, corporation that operates 41 Iron Skillets at truck stops across the country.
Petro denied all allegations last night.
Diane Scott, 47, a health-care office worker who lives in Northeast Baltimore, is the lead plaintiff in the class action case. The restaurant was neither crowded nor empty, she said, and no other African-Americans were at the diner.
Scott said the treatment her group received -- being forced to wait 20 minutes without being seated, having to wait an additional 40 minutes before a waitress arrived after seating themselves and watching as white people who came in after them were served first -- might have been overlooked as bad service until she asked to speak to the manager.
"When I asked why we weren't being waited on, she started off by saying, 'You people,' " Scott recalled. "When we went to the register to get our money back, she said we weren't getting anything back and said the bus driver should have come in first to ask if they could accommodate 'you people.' She said it two more times, told us we couldn't come in the restaurant anymore and to take our money down the road and divide it up."
In addition, Scott said, the group was told there were no more baked potatoes when white people in the restaurant, who had arrived after the bowlers, were being served baked potatoes; they overheard a cook in the kitchen refuse to prepare their order; when some of the food did arrive, it was cold while the one white member of the Baltimore bowling club got his food promptly and hot.
In Baltimore, Scott called a number of lawyers and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who put her in touch with the Equal Justice Foundation.
Said Curtis Coats, manager of advertising and promotions for Petro Stopping Centers: "We're vigorously denying the allegations. I've talked to the manager of the restaurant, and we don't see any merit, any proof. Our work force and our clientele are very diverse, and we've never had any suits like this in the past. The most disheartening part is we're really concerned what this will do to our image."
Pub Date: 12/08/98