Douchery at The Union Bar

An interesting story broke over the weekend-- namely that a UI Student was considering filing a complaint with the Iowa City Human Rights Commission because the Union Bar had prevented her from going out on the dance floor with her friends because of her weight:

When she asked the security guards why they wouldn’t allow her onto the platform after her friends and others had been permitted, Ramos said they told her it was because she “was not pretty enough” and because she was “obviously pregnant.”

I'm a little torn on this one... while I think society has some truly fucked up notions about what should be considered beautiful and people shouldn't be made to feel like shit or be denied opportunities because they don't conform to society's fucked up notions about what's beautiful or what's not I'm not sure 'weight' should be a protected status either in Iowa City or in Iowa itself. (Skin color or sexuality isn't really something I think people have much of a choice over- weight... that question becomes a little more debatable...)

But happily, I don't think that's the issue at stake here. Rather, it's the question of who gets to decide who dances on the dance floor or not- especially after this young woman undoubtedly paid what I'm sure was an obscene amount of cover for the privilege of entering the magnificent establishment that is The Union Bar. Yeah, I'm going to come down on the side of good old fashioned business/free market capitalism here: if I pay money to come into your festering shithole of a bar, you don't get to tell me where I can and cannot dance.

Whether Ms. Ramos files a formal complaint or not, I at least hope she can rally enough support (as apparently there's been multiple instances of douchey behavior on the part of the Union Bar, according to the P-C article) to get enough of a boycott going to cut into their business in a big way. I've never set foot in the place- even as an undergraduate, the place had a skeevy reputation for embracing all the worst stereotypes of Iowa City's drinking culture. It was a shithole hook-up warehouse for undergrads back then and happily it's now added a healthy dollop of douchey misogyny to only confirm that my initial refusal to set foot in the place was the right call.

The Union is one of the few bars that Iowa City could definately do without. It confirms every Townie/old person stereotype about the college drinking culture at the University and to me, stretches the definition of what a bar actually is to begin with. Bars are indeed places where you can drink and yes, dance- but if your establishment is set up to pour cheap, shitty beer down the throat of naive undergraduates who, sadly are all too willing to surrender their money to such a shithole for the hope of getting wasted and having random sex with somebody they don't know, then you're not a bar. There's no subtance to places like the Union. There's no style, no panache, no quality... they're just festering shitholes.

I didn't weep salt tears when Jake's closed down and I doubt I'll cry if the Union goes under. Sooner the better, I say.

(P.S. Seriously though- if you're 21 the only reason you should be going into bars like that is if your friends are underage. There are SO MANY BETTER BARS out there. Dublin, Deadwood, Foxhead, Sanctuary... go exploring!)

UPDATED: Protest is planned for the weekend...