Last Friday, my roommate and I went to Chuck’s Cafe. We arrived around 11:30 p.m. I was ready to pay cover when my roommate stopped me, saying one of her friends was requesting we go to Lucy’s Retired Surfers Bar instead. I was standing in the entrance waiting for them to decide when suddenly, the doorman grabbed my roommate and pushed her out the door. Defensive of this abrupt act, I asked the doorman why he would do such a thing. He claimed he asked her to move twice and when she started to move, she didn’t move fast enough and was holding up the line. I looked past him and saw no line, but a visibly upset roommate. I told him I thought his actions were unnecessary, that the music was too loud to hear him and that he should’ve tapped her on the shoulder before shoving her. He then grabbed me and pulled me toward the door. I shouted at him not to touch me, but he proceeded to drag me out the door and call me a b*tch. He also told the bouncer that my ID was a fake, which it’s not. When I asked to speak to the owner, he told me he was the owner — his name was Michael — and I was banned for life.

I happily accept the ban if this man continues to work at Chuck’s. I’ve told this story to several people who claim to have seen him forcibly remove girls that same weekend. I’ve been going to Chuck’s for a year and I’ve never met him or had an issue with forcefulness from the staff. If this is the treatment I should expect when going to Chuck’s, then there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way this establishment does its business. I shouldn’t be at the mercy of a doorman just because he allows the power of his taser gun to go to his head.

I’m disappointed that Chuck’s would allow this behavior from its employees. From now on, my friends and I will continue around the corner to either Lucy’s or Faegan’s Cafe and Pub if we see Michael, “the owner of Chuck’s,” working the door.

As actress Leslie Mann put it in “Knocked Up”: “You may have power now, but you are not God. You’re a doorman.” Michael should show a little more respect to paying customers before he loses “his” bar a lot of business.

Chelsea Miner

Advertising and communications and rhetorical studies major

Syracuse University 2014