ACLU Assailed for Representing 4 Neo-Nazis

The national chairman of the Jewish Defense League lashed out Wednesday at the American Civil Liberties Union for its decision to represent four neo-Nazis ejected from a Torrance Octoberfest celebration when they refused to remove their swastika lapel pins.

“This is not a civil rights issue. We believe that a riot will occur should these Nazis come back to this restaurant wearing these swastikas again,” said Irv Rubin, calling on Jews to halt their contributions to the ACLU unless it withdraws from the case.

“If you’re despised by the majority of people in society, you’ve got a friend in the ACLU,” Rubin complained at a press conference called with Hans Rotter, the owner of the Alpine Inn, a German restaurant at which the confrontation occurred last year.

The lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges that the four men, all of whom have ties to white supremacist organizations, were seated for dinner in October of last year when an employee informed them they would not be served unless they removed their pins.

They refused. Eventually, a guard asked them to leave and, when the men refused, he called sheriff’s deputies, who arrested them.

The suit, claiming the restaurant violated state civil rights laws barring discrimination by business establishments, seeks a court order requiring the men to be admitted to the restaurant and unspecified damages.

“People must be served irrespective of their political views, and that’s all that’s at stake in this particular case,” said Gayle Binion, executive director of the ACLU.

“I would hope that people would recognize that this is simply testimony to the fact that we are committed to the protection of civil liberties, and it doesn’t matter whose civil liberties they are,” Binion added.

But Torrance attorney Gerald King, representing the restaurant owners, said the case is also about a restaurant owner’s right to protect his customers.

All four men had been in the restaurant, a frequent gathering place for German immigrants, about a week earlier and had caused a disturbance when they rose for a Nazi salute during a German march song, he said. When the men left, the restrooms were papered with anti-Semitic and racist stickers, which had drawn numerous complaints from customers, he added.

When they returned to the restaurant a week later, he said, it was filled with more than 1,000 customers for one of the largest Octoberfest celebrations in the state.

“As I’m sure you’re aware, Germans, especially the older ones, are sensitive to the stigma attached to the old Nazi days,” King said.

“If that situation is not a provocation to violence, if that is not going into a crowded theater and yelling fire , then I will give up my career as a Jewish activist and become a Catholic,” Rubin said.

“For 50 years, the Jewish community has been looking for righteous non-Jews like Mr. and Mrs. Rotter to stand up and take a stand against Naziism, against Jew hatred. Now we’re getting kicked in the guts,” he said.

The Four Plaintiffs

The plaintiffs in the suit are Joseph Fields, Hal Follin, Stanley Witek and Gene Loven, none of whom could be reached for comment Wednesday.

Rubin said all four are members of the National Socialist American Workers Party, the national Nazi party, for which Witek serves as the local chairman. ACLU officials said they were not certain of the plaintiffs’ precise political affiliations.

Fields was represented by the ACLU last year when he was fired from his job as opinion editor of the student newspaper at Harbor College in Wilmington because of his connections with right-wing groups attempting to distribute literature calling the Holocaust a hoax. He was reinstated as a result of the ACLU suit.

Two of the other plaintiffs, Loven and Witek, were among those arrested in 1983 in connection with a 1983 cross-burning incident near Lake View Terrace, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.