Nightclub Settles Claim of Sex Bias : Hollywood: The Florentine Gardens agrees to stop ‘Skirt Night’ and other promotions that admitted women for free.

A popular Hollywood nightclub has agreed to end its “Skirt Night” and all other promotions designed to let women in for free as part of an out-of-court settlement of a sex discrimination lawsuit.

The suit was filed by two men and a woman who said it was unfair and illegal to allow women in skirts into the Florentine Gardens club for free on certain nights while forcing men, and women without skirts, to pay a cover charge.

Under the terms of the settlement, made public late last week, Florentine Gardens agreed to immediately stop all promotions and practices based on sex, and promised to have no gender-based discounts in the future.

In exchange, plaintiffs Andrew Exler of Palm Springs, Dennis Koire of Anaheim and Julie Palasco of Los Angeles agreed to drop their Superior Court lawsuit, which was scheduled to go to trial next week.

“This is an important victory for the equal rights of men, who are entitled to the same accommodations and privileges as women,” Exler said.

“There are a lot of clubs that are doing these types of promotions, five years after the state Supreme Court ruled they are illegal,” Exler said. “I hope that this settlement will encourage other California businesses to immediately cease ‘women only’ promotions.”

Florentine Gardens, at 5951 Hollywood Blvd., is particularly popular with area college students, but its admission practices have gotten it into trouble from time to time. Last year, students from several area colleges accused the club of having denied entry to Asian students on the basis of race.

In the sex discrimination suit, filed in February, the three plaintiffs alleged that they were told they would have to pay $10 each to get into the club during a “Skirt Night” promotion last December because they were not wearing skirts.

The three had been seeking $1 million in punitive damages and no less than $250 in actual damages from the club for “humiliation and degradation.”

David M. Brown, a lawyer for the nightclub, said the club has already stopped promotions that allow women in free. He also said the club agreed to pay damages of $250 per plaintiff as required by the state Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits businesses from discriminating on the basis of sex, race or any other arbitrary characteristic.

When the sex discrimination suit was filed, Brown described it as being frivolous, saying: “Our response is this: that when we stop laughing, we’ll respond. I suppose this means we couldn’t have a green hat day either.”

Brown said Monday that settling out of court was not an admission of guilt.

The skirt night case “was not worth contesting for my client, as a matter of business,” Brown said. However, Brown said the promotion did not violate the Unruh Act. He disputed the allegations by the plaintiffs, saying anyone, male or female, wearing a skirt could have gotten in free.

In June of this year, the club resolved its differences with Asian students who had claimed race discrimination when they were refused entry to the club on several occasions in 1989. The students had contended that the club’s security personnel were denying them admission on Thursday “University Nights” by selectively applying an unspecified dress code.

Students from Occidental College, protesting what they described as informal racial quotas at Florentine Gardens, enlisted the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union and university administrators to get the club to change its policies.

Although the club denied ever discriminating on the basis of race, it promised the ACLU during negotiations that it would implement procedures that would be less likely to result in arbitrary exclusions, Brown said.

The sex discrimination case settled last week was the latest victory for Exler, a 29-year-old legal assistant who has filed several such lawsuits aimed at stopping discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation. He said his share of the award would be donated to the Los Angeles chapter of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a media watch group that monitors the portrayal of lesbians and gay men in the media.

In April, 1989, Exler sued a resort nightclub near Palm Springs for allegedly refusing to admit him to a male exotic dance show, but the case was thrown out. In June, 1988, Exler sued the Chippendales nightclub in Los Angeles for allegedly barring him and two friends from entering the male strip show. This year, he won an out-of-court settlement in which the club offered an apology and promised to admit male patrons, he said Monday.

And in 1984, he made national headlines by winning a suit against Disneyland for refusing to allow him to dance with another man at the park.

In the sex discrimination case, lawyers chastised Exler for being a professional litigant who sued for publicity reasons. Exler said he only files lawsuits when he feels he has good reason.