Jake’s Dilemma, a bar on the Upper West Side in New York City, has disciplined a bartender who refused service to Dion Cini since he wore a MAGA hat. From NBC New York:
He said a female bartender had been serving him, and when a new bartender started his shift he saw them whispering together and looking at him. “I knew what was going to happen so I started recording. I’ve been refused service before in New York City but I’ve never had service when they’ve taken my money and then kicked me out before I finished my food,” he said.In Cini’s video, he is seen getting into an argument with the bartender about leaving the bar. The bartender reaches for Cini’s phone, and they have words.“You won’t serve me because I’m wearing my hat, right?” Cini says in the video. The bartender replies, “Right.” Cini replies, “It’s a Trump hat, right?….It’s because the hat is red? You hate America?” Security calls police and Cini is escorted from the bar. Video of the incident has been viewed on Facebook more than 90,000 times.
In the video, Cini admitted that he had a tab to pay and paid it. But the bartender told him “correct” when he asked her if she refused him another beer due to his hat. From Fox News:
In a statement to Fox News, Cini claimed the female bartender in the video was the one who had wanted him to leave, and she was the one who instructed the male bartender to kick out Cini, at which point he started recording. He also acknowledged it was their “legal right” to refuse him service, but he also claimed he had ordered dinner and was eating at the time, “so in essence I wasn’t denied service… they provided me service and then kick[ed] me out for refusing to take off my hat,” he said.”The bartender ran my credit card without asking me or without having finished my meal,” he added. “They continue[d] to ask me to leave and I kept asking him, ‘What for?’ and as you can hear in the video they said I did nothing wrong… Since I did nothing wrong, which would also include my hat, I refused so I could finish my meal and leave on my own terms”
A Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled in 2018 that these establishments can refuse service to people in MAGA hats. But Jake’s Dilemma wants everyone to know their bartender’s behavior will not be tolerated.
Cini spoke to The Daily Caller about the incident:
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