Too drunk or too gay? You decide. On Monday, March 25, two women were kicked out of Zeitgeist, the Mission's biergarten of choice, for allegedly responding to anti-gay remarks. According to one of the evicted patrons, "four big straight men" hurled derogatory slurs at the two women shortly after the March for Marriage Equality. When the duo responded, the bar management kicked them out instead of said dudes. Zeitgeist, however, says that's bullshit and claims that the women were tossed out for different, non-gay reasons.
Follow you will find a Facebook post penned by one of the women kicked out of the bar, describing the incident in her own words. Behold:
I want to thank everyone who has supported our informal boycott of Zeitgeist in response to the homophobia we experienced on 3/25. And for those of you who don't know, here's what happened: On Monday 3/25 a friend and I were called homophobic names by four big straight men at Zeitgeist SF. When we responded the bouncer kicked us out and two more straight girls shook their heads at us, told us to calm down and leave. This was about an hour after we marched for gay rights. Not one person in the bar came to our rescue. Not one.The entire culture of that bar--through their overt homophobia and/or complacency in the face of blatant homophobia created an unsafe environment for me, for my friend and for my entire community of queer and straight allies. I will continue to support a boycott of this bar until a public statement is made by Zeitgeist management regarding their plan to address this incident and create a queer-friendly establishment.
Until then, we would love support from our community. If you want to help, please re-post this incident on your FB page--make sure to tag them in your post. Also please leave a review of Zeigeist on Yelp--the more reviews the better. Thank you again to all our queer friends, family and allies.
Zeitgeist, however, claims that the two patrons in question were 86'd for being too stinko. Via their Facebook page, the bar responds:
Zeitgeist, (formerly Rainbow Cattle Company) has always been a supporter of the gay community. We have always been and will continue to be an equal opportunity employer. We currently have members of the gay community on our staff. We must however comply with San Francisco Alcohol and Beverage Control in regards to intoxicated patrons, REGUARDLESS [sic] of gender, race and sexual orientation.Regarding this incident that everyone is referring to; the two ladies were asked to leave because they were highly intoxicated and became aggressive with other patrons and our staff. It had absolutely nothing to do with their sexual orientation. We are very disappointed and saddened that someone would throw around an accusation of this magnitude without the actual facts. Hopefully, this will be the last post regarding this issue.
Your gay SFist editor has personally never experienced any homophobia directed our way while limp-wristedly guzzling beer at Zeitgeist. We have, however, seen Zeitgeist kick out unruly people on many, many, many occasions. (The art and frequency of 86ing is part of the bar's charm.) Also, they have at least one queer person on staff. So, you know, there's that. Yet, at other Mission bars, we have encountered our fair share of anti-gay sentiment as of late. (The Mission just isn't as friendly to LGBT ilk as it used to be 5-10 year ago.) Who's right? Who knows. Add one more voice to this and we've got ourselves our very own hyperlocal Rashomon.
Anyway, SFist contacted the aforementioned evicted patron to respond to Zeitgeist's claims. We will update as soon as we hear more.