OREGON: Court Of Appeals Upholds $400K Fine For Nightclub That Banned Trans Patrons

The Associated Press reports:

The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling that a Portland bar owner must pay about $400,000 in damages to patrons he told to stay away. The state investigated a bar formerly known as the P Club after the owner left a voice message for one of the Rose City T-Girls, a group of transgender customers that frequented the bar Friday nights. The message said business was down Fridays, likely because people incorrectly assumed the P Club was a gay or “tranny” bar. He asked the group to stop visiting. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ruled in 2013 that the bar violated a law that prohibits discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation or gender identity. The Appeals Court upheld the ruling Wednesday.

According to a September 2014 report by the Oregonian, the bar’s name was changed shortly after the banning.

Nearly 50 years after the first Portsmouth Club sign went up, Chris Penner painted a new name on the North Lombard Street bar. This, Penner said in mid-September, is the Twilight Room Annex. The P Club — the shortened name Penner has used for two years — is dead, he said. But a name change won’t erase the controversy Penner created in July when he called a group of transgender women and told them not to come back to the bar. The group, the Rose City T-Girls, had frequented the bar every Friday night for two years. They brought anywhere from a dozen to 40 people — some who crossdress, others who have fully transitioned to female — into the cavernous club each week. But their presence drove other customers away, Penner said. “People think that A: We’re a tranny bar, or B: We’re a gay bar,” he said in a message left on one of the T-Girls voicemail. “We are neither. People are not coming in because they just don’t want to be here on a Friday night now.”

RELATED: The city of Portland banned anti-LGBT discrimination in 2001. A similar statewide ban was enacted in 2007. Oregon is one of only 17 states that bans public accommodation discrimination on the basis of gender identity.