The family-run Peruvian Lima restaurant in Concord, California served its final meals on New Year's Eve after being financially crushed by the weight of a recent lawsuit.
Lima found itself in the national spotlight for hosting a weekly ladies' night promotion. This promotion was a once-common and highly lucrative practice of offering discounted drinks to attract women to the establishment. However, Chef/owner John Marquez told the New York Post that a gender-discrimination lawsuit filed last year has cost his restaurant tens of thousands of dollars as a result.
"We haven’t fully recovered from the recent discrimination lawsuit related to our ladies’ night discount," Marquez recently told KRON-TV. He suggested further to the media that the people behind the lawsuit probably aren’t local residents, but rather "ambulance-chasing lawyers" looking to take advantage of California’s state laws.
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He similarly told ABC7 News, "It’s a frivolous lawsuit that took us down."
But California law on the books indeed shows that businesses are supposed to provide "full and equal accommodations" regardless of customers’ identities.
The Unruh Civil Rights Act, a decades-old California law, states that "All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, primary language, or immigration status are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever."
CNN’s coverage of this latest incident cited University of San Diego professor of business law and ethics, Rebecca Nieman, who warned, "A lot of these small mom-and-pop-type bars honestly might not know about this law," and that this is precisely why such lawsuits are still happening to "extremely small proprietors."
But more businesses aside from restaurants are facing the consequences of this California law.
The Fresno Grizzlies, a minor league baseball team, faced a similar lawsuit, reportedly being sued for $5-million after they allowed free admission for women for a "ladies night" promotion last year.
The plaintiffs in that case were represented by Alfred Rava, a San Diego-based lawyer who had also sued the Oakland Athletics in a class-action lawsuit over a Mother’s Day giveaway of a free plaid reversible bucket hat.
