By R. Robin McDonald, From Daily Report

A partner with a Lawrenceville health law boutique claims in a federal suit that he and three clients were ordered to leave a Houston’s restaurant in Buckhead because they were minorities.

Yussuf Abdel-aleem of Joseph, Aleem & Slowik has sued Houston’s Restaurants of Georgia and its parent company, Hillstone Restaurant Group, claiming that he and three corporate executives were ousted from Houston’s on Peachtree Road by the restaurant’s white manager during a business meeting in April. The suit says that the pretext for the removal of the four men was a baseball cap the attorney was wearing when a waitress seated them and a telephone call he answered while Houston’s manager was directing him to remove his cap.

The suit says that two months later, two of the men in the April dining party returned to Houston’s with two other businessmen and were asked to leave the restaurant without explanation. They were escorted out by an Atlanta police officer summoned by restaurant management, according to the suit.

The suit claims that both ousters occurred because restaurant management discriminated against minorities in violation of federal public accommodation laws.

The suit identifies Yussuf Abdel-aleem as an Arab-American. With him at Houston’s on April 15 were fellow plaintiffs Minaljumar Patel, an Indian-American and the CEO of LabSolutions LLC; Myron Moorehead, an African-American and CEO of Pro Care Counseling LLC in Atlanta; and Aleem’s brother, Omar Abdel-aleem, LabSolutions’ vice president of research and development. Patel and Moorehead are Yussuf Abdel-aleem’s clients.

The four men are represented by Tarek Abdel-aleem, brother of Yussuf and Omar and a partner at Joseph, Aleem & Slowik.

Yussuf Abdel-aleem told the Daily Report that he and his clients decided to sue “because I feel that people in the Atlanta community and elsewhere need to know exactly what transpired, and, perhaps more importantly, we ought to evaluate whether this is part of a more widespread practice.”

Abdel-aleem said that he might not have considered suing but for the second incident, when an Atlanta police officer was summoned to remove his brother, Omar; Patel; and two prospective clients of Lab­Solutions, also both minorities, from the restaurant in front of a crowded dining room of white diners.

Glenn Viers, general counsel for Beverly Hills, California-based Hillstone Restaurant Group told the Daily Report that Houston’s “is not in the habit of allowing guests to flaunt our dress code. We have a dress code that is uniformly enforced. Gentlemen don’t wear hats in the dining room.”

“We stand behind our manager,” Viers added. “Most importantly we stand behind our standards. It’s not unreasonable to have a dress code. I will give anybody their right to object to a dress code. But at least as far as I know, we still have the right to enforce it. We do uniformly. … It is unfortunate that what can only be characterized as a guest relations issue gets transformed in a lawyer’s hands into a civil rights action.”

According to the suit, Yussuf Abdel-aleem didn’t know that wearing a baseball cap violated the restaurant’s rules or that his inability to remove it quickly enough would cause Houston’s manager to order him, his brother and his clients to leave the restaurant shortly after a waitress had seated them for dinner at the Peachtree Road location on April 15 without mentioning the cap policy.

The suit contends that shortly after the party was seated, Houston’s manager came to the table and ordered Abdel-aleem to remove his cap. As Abdel-aleem was doing so, his cellphone rang and he answered the call, the suit said, and the manager immediately and loudly demanded that he hang up, saying that use of a cellphone in the dining room also violated the restaurant’s policies.

The suit says that Abdel-aleem, embarrassed, hung up the phone and removed his cap. Then, the lawyer “politely informed [the restaurant manager] that he did not appreciate being loudly and publicly chastised, especially because he was in the company of important clients and was on the line with yet another,” the suit contends.

At the time, Abdel-aleem also asked to see a copy of the restaurant’s policy barring men from wearing hats and barring cellphones, but, the suit said, the manager refused. She briefly left the table but soon returned “with an unidentified large man who publicly demanded all [the] plaintiffs leave the restaurant and threatened to call the police if they didn’t,” the suit claims. At the time, according to the suit, Abdel-aleem and his companions were the only minorities in the dining area.

The suit contends that Houston’s management was “motivated by [the] plaintiffs’ Arab, Indian and African-American races when they denied plaintiffs’ service, scolded them, refused to describe or provide Houston’s or Hillstone’s policy when politely requested, and had all [the] plaintiffs publicly kicked out.”

Two months later, on June 9, Patel and Omar Abdel-aleem invited two prospective clients—also minorities—to dine with them at the same Houston’s and, according to the suit, “discuss a potential multimillion-dollar business transaction.” The suit says that neither the executives nor their two clients were violating any of the restaurant’s policies. Nevertheless, the Houston’s manager immediately contacted Atlanta police, who escorted them from the restaurant in front of a crowded dining room full of white patrons. Again, according to the suit, Patel, Omar Abdel-aleem, and their two clients were the only minority customers at the time.

In an affidavit filed with the suit, Patel said, “I felt humiliated, embarrassed and grief-stricken.”

“I felt discriminated against due to my Indian race and because I was not white like the other patrons in the restaurant.”

Viers, Houston’s general counsel, contends that it was a lack of manners in violation of the restaurant chain’s policies, not discrimination, that caused management to oust the plaintiffs and their dining companions from the restaurant. The plaintiffs, he insisted, “had eaten at the restaurant on any number of other occasions” without incident.

“The manager that was involved in the altercation I know quite well and have faith that she was handling what was a difficult decision,” he said. “It was made more difficult by the fact the individual was a lawyer.” Lawyers, he said, sometimes “use the law degree as a license to bully.”

Viers also said that during the April confrontation, his female manager “was called one of the most offensive terms that can be directed toward a female.”

He said he has no details about what prompted management’s decision to summon police in June, but he added, “It’s very, very difficult for a restaurant whose hallmark is delivering good service to ask guests to dine elsewhere. But that is our prerogative when guests are disrespectful to our staff.”

In a high-profile case alleging race discrimination by another Buckhead restaurant, former NBA player Joe Barry Carroll in 2011 sued the Tavern at Phipps. Carroll said that he and an attorney, both African-Americans, were ordered to leave the restaurant because they refused to surrender their seats at the bar to two white women.

Carroll and Atlanta attorney Joseph Shaw had sought as much as $3 million in damages for what they, like Yussuf Abdel-aleem and his companions, claimed were violations of federal civil rights laws.

The Tavern’s lawyers had argued that its policy of “Southern hospitality” required men seated at the bar to give up their seats to women who came in after them.

After a weeklong trial, a federal jury that included three African-Americans took just 20 minutes to decide that the Tavern’s employees had not discriminated against the basketball player and the lawyer.

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Houstons Peachtree Rd. John Disney/Daily Report Yussuf Abdel-aleem

For more on this story go to: http://www.dailyreportonline.com/id=1202732111730/Lawyer-Ousted-With-Clients-From-Houstons-Sues-Restaurant-Claiming-Racial-Bias#ixzz3fyCaXnHN