Red Onion Weighs Changes Amid Charges of Race Bias

Officials of the Red Onion restaurant chain, which is under fire for alleged racial discrimination, met with their lawyer Wednesday to discuss “comprehensive” revisions in the company’s hiring and training policies.

The revisions are recommended in a 20-page report from a consultant hired in May to ensure that the firm would implement and monitor racially neutral policies, Red Onion attorney Ralph Saltsman said.

Although the company consistently has denied that it discriminates in admission to its discotheques, lawyers said changes were initiated to correct “the perception of a problem.”

The chain of 14 Southern California restaurants is being investigated by the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the City of Riverside for allegedly turning away minorities because of their race.

More than 50 complaints and three lawsuits, all charging racial discrimination, have been filed against the company by people who sought entrance to Red Onions in Santa Ana, Fullerton, Riverside and Palm Desert.

Saltsman joined company President Ron Newman and other officials Wednesday to discuss consultant Nathaniel Trives’ recommendations. After the meeting, Stephen Solomon, vice president of the Carson-based restaurant chain, said the company will disclose details of the proposed changes after Trives returns from an East Coast trip July 11 and “minor contractual details” are worked out.

Saltsman said the initial cost of the changes to the chain will be $120,000 and will include an earlier pledge by the firm to give scholarships to minorities.

“This will be a forever-and-forever program,” he said.

Complaints Filed

Last April, six men, including two blacks, two Latinos and two Middle Easterners, filed complaints with the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging racial discrimination after they were turned away from the Red Onion disco in Santa Ana.

The men said they were told that their driver’s licenses were questionable or that they failed to meet the Red Onion’s dress code. Since that time, dozens of similar complaints have been lodged against the company, including one from a black Afro-American studies professor at Cal State Fullerton who took his class on a field trip to the Red Onion after reading about discrimination allegations in The Times.

Wacira Gethaiga, 37, said that although the black women students who were part of the field trip were allowed in, he was stopped “arbitrarily” at the door because he was wearing designer blue jeans.

After news reports about these complaints, former and current Red Onion employees came forward to say that their bosses at several Red Onions told them “to clean up the crowd” when it became “too dark.”

One employee, who still works for the chain but who asked not to be identified, said that in recent weeks, since the publicity, door hosts have been under less pressure to control Red Onion crowds. He said door hosts have to keep a written log documenting all customers who are turned away and listing why.