I want to complain about the way I was treated twice at Kengo's Seafood in Restaurant Row. The first time, the owner came up to me as I was eating and said I couldn't eat there because I hadn't left a tip earlier. It wasn't me because I had never been there before. Then on Easter Sunday, I took a disabled person there for lunch. As I was waiting to make reservations, the owner came up and told me to leave. He said he has the right to refuse service to anyone. He called security. I have short hair, am clean-shaven and have never caused any trouble. I don't feel what he's done is fair or ethical -- first to falsely accuse me of something, then refuse me and my friend service. Can he really just refuse anyone service? Customer told to leave
upset at denial of serviceIn this case, apparently yes. But Kengo Nozaki, the owner, disputes your version of events.
"Everybody (businesses) needs customers," he said.
"Something is wrong if you have to refuse people service."
When asked about your complaint, he said you were not the kind of customer he wanted because your personal hygiene and dress were distracting to other customers. He said you and your friend did not adhere to a posted dress code sign and also that you were argumentative.
"I refuse to serve him, but he came back," Nozaki said.
We checked with the state Office of Consumer Protection and was referred to the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission on the question of his right to turn you away.
William Hoshijo, the commission's executive director, began by explaining that his office enforces nondiscrimination laws pertaining to employment, housing, public accommodations (including restaurants) and state and state-funded services.
A restaurant cannot "deny or attempt to deny a person the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages and accommodations of a place of public accommodation on the basis of race, sex, color, religion, ancestry or disability."
From your accounting of the two incidents, there doesn't seem to be any apparent violation of the state civil rights law, Hoshijo said.
But that's also if the refusal of service was not a pretext for discriminating against any of the protected classes, he said.
Asked how someone would recognize this, he gave this example: If an African-American asked to be seated in a restaurant and was not seated for whatever given reason, but someone who came in right afterward was seated, "that would be prima facie" evidence of discrimination, he said. Or you may be seated but ignored for half an hour.
"If (a complainant) could articulate a suspicion of discrimination to bring it into our jurisdiction," then the commission would be in a position to investigate, he said.
Hoshijo added, however, that something unfair is not necessarily unlawful.
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