Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS. : AT THE SCENE : Red Onion Queries, Complaints Mount

More layers were peeled away last week in the controversy over charges that the Red Onion restaurant and disco chain was guilty of racial discrimination.

The chain, with outlets in Santa Ana, Fullerton, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, was already under investigation by the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing and the Orange County Human Relations Commission. Last week Martin Reichman, manager of the Santa Ana Red Onion, charged in an interview with the Orange County Register that part of his job was keeping nonwhites out of the establishment, a practice he called “cleaning up the crowd” that waited to be admitted to the disco in the evening.

Red Onion spokesmen denied these charges, as they have in the past, but the company president, Ron Newman, met for three hours Friday with company executives and attorneys at the chain’s Carson headquarters to discuss Reichman’s charges.

“It was decided by Mr. Newman to investigate all the allegations of racial discrimination,” according to Ralph Saltsman, a Red Onion attorney. “He does not want any wrongdoing to be ongoing in his restaurants. He wants to be assured that there isn’t any impropriety going on.”

A Los Angeles Times story a month ago detailed six complaints filed with the state by two blacks, two Latinos and two Middle Easterners that they had been denied admission to the disco in Santa Ana.

About 50 additional complaints have been filed since then, according to Dorothy Davis, an area supervisor for the fair employment and housing department.