Restaurateur Threatens to Serve Allred a Countersuit

An Encino restaurant owner, accused in a lawsuit last week of discriminating against the handicapped by refusing to allow a disabled woman’s licensed “service dog” in his establishment, fought back Wednesday with legal threats, comedy and tamales.

Louis Michael Tamale ejected a West Hills woman and her dog from his Ventura Boulevard restaurant, according to a complaint announced July 23 by attorney Gloria Allred at a press conference outside the restaurant.

Dressed in red shirt, red apron, red pants, red socks and red cloth shoes--mocking, he said, Allred’s habit of wearing red outfits--Tamale held his own press conference on the patio of his establishment, the World Famous Mr. Tamale’s Gourmet Mexicatessen.

Finances Weakened

Tamale, who changed his name from Moran to fit his calling, said the adverse publicity of the lawsuit has chased away his patrons and cut off his financial backing.

He said he hires handicapped employees and loves dogs.

He said he makes great tamales.

And he said he was once a paralegal, and, if San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli doesn’t return his call, he’s going to fight Allred in court himself. That will begin today, he said, when he will tow his red tamale wagon to Van Nuys Superior Court and file suit against Allred for malicious prosecution.

After that, he said, he’ll file a complaint with the California Bar Assn.

Tamale said Allred never contacted him to hear his side of the story or to seek a resolution, but instead inflicted the maximum damage on his business by holding a press conference that was shown on television.

Then he invited all the reporters and cameramen into his kitchen to show how he makes his tamales. Tamale pulled a tamale from a steaming cooker and removed its corn husk with a flourish.

“This is what’s called a succulent pork,” said Tamale. The reporters and cameramen each ate one.

In between the choreographed comedy, Tamale also supplied his version of the events of June 10 when, according to the lawsuit, he humiliated 47-year-old Sandy Oseas by asking her to remove her dog during an Encino Chamber of Commerce mixer.

The dog, a poodle specially trained and licensed to aid Oseas, can pull her wheelchair and help her up steps and into and out of restrooms and her van. Oseas said other restaurant owners have allowed her dog to accompany her after seeing its license as a service dog but that Tamale refused.

Denies Oseas’ Claim

Tamale denied that. He said he hardly spoke to the woman, so overwhelmed was he by the appearance of more than 80 Chamber of Commerce members in his five-table restaurant, which opened in May.

Tamale said he was in his kitchen cooking more tamales when one of his staff complained that a woman had brought a dog into the restaurant.

“I walk up to her and I say, ‘Ma’am, we don’t allow dogs in the restaurant. Dogs and tamales don’t mix.’ And I turn around and I walk away. That was it.”

He said he spent the rest of the night making tamales.

“I never asked the girl to leave,” he said. “I only said the dog and tamales don’t mix. . . . I thought it was a funny line.”

Oseas alleged that Tamale told her, “I don’t care what the law says. I don’t want a dog in here with my tamales.”

Allred was not available for comment. However, a member of her firm, Michael Maroko, said Tamale told him a different story. “He has not denied the fact that he asked the person to leave,” Maroko said. “Nor has he denied the fact that the dog was legally licensed. You do not exclude a person with a licensed animal from your business, period. He did that.”