Ex-NBAer's Tavern at Phipps Racial Discrimination Trial Continues Today

A week-long federal trial of a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by  former NBA All-Star player Joe Barry Carroll and attorney Joseph Shaw against a popular Buckhead restaurant and bar with a tradition of asking men to give up seats to women began Monday.

Carroll, a southwest Atlanta resident for more than 15 years, and Shaw contend that they were asked to give up their seats, and eventually kicked out of the upscale Tavern at Phipps, because they were black.

Meanwhile, David Long-Daniels, the attorney for the restaurant, said Monday that the two men actually were demanding discrimination in their favor, a story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Long-Daniels said when the men were asked to relinquish their seats they declined, and evoked Carroll's former NBA status and Shaw's profession.

According to a Huffington Post report on the incident, the standoff over the seats took place on a Friday night in August 2006 when Carroll and Shaw sat at the end of a bar and ordered a few beers, a few appetizers and some liquor. As the crowd grew thicker, a bartender offered them complimentary drinks to move, but they declined.

They were soon asked several more times to give up their seats to women, but each time they refused, according to court testimony. A manager eventually threatened to call security if they didn't relent, and an off-duty Atlanta police officer who works for the restaurant was summoned to the scene.

The Tavern is attached to ritzy Phipp's Plaza and on weekend nights it's a place to see and be seen, filled with well-dressed, attractive clientele. Bartenders are known to toss and juggle bottles, putting on a show while they mix specialty drinks.

Jeffrey Bramlett, an attorney for the two men, said interviews with current and former employees show that Greg Greenbaum, the restaurant's head, feared that "black thugs" would follow if blacks started flocking to his business. He said the restaurant systematically encouraged managers to avoid hiring too many black staffers and limited black hostesses on peak nights.

Staffers were also told to "slow serve" black patrons during hectic times, he said. And during the February 2003 NBA All Star game, when young black basketball fans crowded the city, the restaurant hung large "Welcome Rodeo Fans" banners and played country music, according to court records.

According to the AJC story, the men were told of the restaurant's long-time practice of currying favor with female patrons by having men give up their bar stools for standing women. Yet, the two men repeatedly refused, implying that other patrons should forfeit their seats, Long-Daniels said.

No other men were seated in Carroll and Shaw's section of the bar, Long-Daniels said.

"This has more to do with personality and ego than anything else," Long-Daniels told a majority-white jury on Monday. "In the end, it is just about good manners."

Testimony continues today.