Five Black women turned away from a Pennsylvania Denny’s over supposed electrical issues are suing for racial discrimination after they went inside to use the bathroom and saw the restaurant operating normally, serving an all-white crowd.
“The lights are flickering,” a hostess at the Denny’s in Bloomsburg told Daniella Bonhomme, Tatiana Poulard, Aminique Kirnon, Selina Sacasa and Quantavia Grant on Jan. 14, 2024, after rushing to intercept them in the vestibule when they stopped in for lunch during a road trip.
But on their way to the restrooms the women passed tables of white patrons eating and being served, with no sign of any light issues, they said.
Bloomsburg, a 13,400-population town alongside the Susquehanna River about 150 miles west of New York City, is 88.2% white and 4.5% Black or African American, according to the World Population Review.
The women, all originally from New York, alleged in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Wednesday that they “were humiliatingly denied seating and service at the Denny’s in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania simply because of the color of their skin,” reads the complaint filed Wednesday in United States District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania. “Clearly, the alleged ‘flickering’ lights were nothing more than a pretext for blatant racial discrimination.”
Denny’s did not respond to numerous requests for comment from the Daily News.
“This is something that was incredibly blatant and obvious to anyone who could have seen it,” said attorney Kyle Platt, who with lawyer Jacqueline Carranza is representing the women with Elefterakis, Elefterakis & Panek in New York City. “They entered the restaurant and were immediately basically ushered away, while all the white patrons were able to eat without issue.”
“Our clients were deeply hurt by what happened that day,” Carranza told The News, noting an electrical issue might have warranted a delay, not dismissal. “There was no reason for any employee to rush to them before they even entered the premises.”
Kirnon posted video of the incident to TikTok, where it racked up more than 40,000 views and hundreds of outraged comments. Denny’s assigned corporate vice president Chioke Elmore, who is also Black, to convince Kirnon that the restaurant had not been discriminating. “I look like you, and I wouldn’t want to work here if they didn’t want people like us to eat here,” she said, according to the complaint.
As a remedy, Elmore offered Kirnon a free meal “as if a Denny’s Grand Slam could wipe away the emotional distress from the harrowing violation of Plaintiffs’ civil rights,” the complaint says. Nearly two years later Kirnon and her friends “continue to suffer severe mental anguish and emotional distress” including “depression, humiliation, embarrassment, stress and anxiety, loss of self-esteem and self-confidence, and emotional pain and suffering,” the complaint says.
The suit was filed two days after Denny’s announced it was being acquired by TriArtisan Capital Advisors, a private equity investment company, partnering with the investment firm Treville Capital and with one of the chain’s largest franchisees, Yadav Enterprises, for $620 million, and taken private.
The restaurant chain bills itself as “open to all people” and as “honest, warm and inviting” on its website. But it has spent millions over the years to settle discrimination claims, most notably $54 million it paid in 1994 to thousands of Black customers who had been refused service, waited longer than white customers, or been charged more than light-skinned customers. In other instances, Black customers were told to prepay for their meals, unlike white patrons. In May of this year, two Black truckers who had been escorted out of a Sioux Falls Denny’s by cops in 2023 filed a civil suit.
“They’re not just demanding a free meal,” Carranza said. “They’re demanding justice.”
With News Wire Services
