The D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control Board on Wednesday asked the Office of the D.C. Attorney General to continue an investigation into allegations that a security officer at Nellie’s Sport Bar dragged a Black woman down a flight of stairs during a fight between security officers and other customers during the early morning hours of June 13.
The ABC Board made its referral to the office headed by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine after it received a lengthy report about the Nellie’s incident from the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA), which conducted its own investigation into the incident.
The 24-page ABRA report, which includes 19 pages of addendums, including D.C. police reports and summaries of witness interviews, accuses Nellie’s of being in violation of the D.C. Code pertaining to its liquor license by failing to follow proper procedures during an outbreak of violence on its premises.
ABRA spokesperson Aaron King told the Washington Blade the Office of the Attorney General will make the final determination on whether Nellie’s and its staff violated D.C. law or regulations pertaining to the Nellie’s incident. King said that if the OAG finds that violations did occur the ABC Board could then hold a Show Cause Hearing to determine whether to impose a monetary fine and/or suspend or revoke Nellie’s liquor license.
The public version of the report released on June 30 by ABRA includes dozens of blacked out names of witnesses and the names of one or more investigators who interviewed them.
The report and the investigation that prompted it came about after the release of a video by a Nellie’s patron on Instagram that captured the Nellie’s security guard dragging customer Keisha Young, 22, by her hair down a flight of stairs. The video, which went viral on social media, prompted expressions of outrage by LGBTQ activists and local LGBTQ and racial justice organizations, several of which joined forces to hold protests outside Nellie’s over the following two weeks.
Nellie’s released a statement Thursday night pointing out that the ABRA report also found the altercation began when “Nellie’s staff” were assaulted after they asked a group of patrons who reportedly brought in their own bottle of liquor to leave the establishment.
“Consumption of outside alcohol is against Nellie’s longstanding policy,” the statement says. “We don’t condone what followed and we terminated the security company responsible, closed the establishment for a period to further investigate and move forward with additional training and a new security company,” according to the statement, which adds, “We fully cooperated with ABRA on its investigation.”
Some of the groups participating in the protests outside Nellie’s in the weeks since the June 13 incident are calling for Nellie’s to close permanently regardless of what, if any, action ABRA or the ABC Board takes against Nellie’s, which has long been considered one of D.C.’s popular LGBTQ bars.
And some of the groups, including Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, a Black-led community defense group headed by Makia Green, who describes themself as a “queer trans non-binary Black liberation organizer,” have alleged that Nellie’s has a history of bias against people of color despite the fact that many of Nellie’s customers have been African-American men and women, LGBTQ and straight.
Preston Mitchum, a D.C. attorney and co-chair of the board of the local group Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS), said that as a former Nellie’s patron he observed practices by the Nellie’s staff and management that he believes were racially biased against Black customers long before the incident involving Keisha Young.
On the day following the incident, Nellie’s issued a statement saying it had immediately dismissed the private security company whose employee was shown on the video dragging Young down the stairs. Nellie’s also apologized for the incident, but did not specifically apologize to Young, prompting further expressions of concern by activists and Young herself, who said she was injured during the incident.
An attorney representing Young said he expected to file a lawsuit on her behalf against Nellie’s seeking damages for the injuries and emotional distress to which she allegedly was subjected during the incident.
The ABRA report states that an ABRA investigator, whose name is blacked out in the public version of the report, “determined that on Sunday, June 13, 2021, Nellie’s Restaurant & Bar, located at 900 U Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., was in violation of D.C. Official Code 25-823(a)(2).” The report adds, “Specifically, multiple assaults occurred inside the establishment while the licensee was engaged in a method of operation conducive to unlawful conduct. This determination was based on a review of Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) PD-251 reports, staff interviews, and surveillance from the establishment.”
The report also includes detailed accounts of statements made to ABRA investigators by Nellie’s customers, employees and the Nellie’s owner, who is not identified in the report but is widely known to be Douglas Schantz, a D.C. resident who lives within walking distance of Nellie’s.
In addition, the report includes a detailed description of video surveillance footage taken from Nellie’s own security cameras. It says the Nellie’s video shows that Young, who is not identified by name, had been involved in a fight with at least one other Nellie’s customer before she was dragged down the stairs by the security guard.
“The complainant of assault identified as [redacted name] wearing a blue outfit and long blond braids is seen at 1:29:32 a.m. at the bottom righthand corner of the frame,” the report says. “[Redacted named] is observed having words with another patron and then pushing [redacted name] and then punching him multiple times in the back of the head.”
Brandon Burrell, an attorney representing Young, has told media outlets that the security officers and Nellie’s employees appear to have mistook Young for another woman who reportedly brought into the bar a bottle of liquor, which prompted security to demand that those involved in drinking the outside liquor leave Nellie’s.
Burrell has also said that prior to her being pulled down the stairs Young got into an altercation with another security guard in an attempt to stop the guard from assaulting her cousin.
The ABRA report says the action by the security officers and a Nellie’s bartender to eject the patrons who reportedly brought in a bottle of Bacardi Limon and who were “consuming shots blatantly in front of the bar” from that bottle triggered the altercation that led to Young being dragged down the stairs.
Included in the ABRA report is a copy of a June 16 letter that D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III sent to ABRA Director Fred Moosally expressing concern about Nellie’s handling of the altercation and calling on Moosally to open an ABRA investigation. Contee told Moosally in his letter that he learned details about the incident from patrons and others who filed police reports about the altercation, including a police report filed by Young on June 14 at the department’s Third District Station.
“Most concerning about this incident is that at no time did Nellie’s Sports Bar staff, management or ownership make any effort to contact the MPD to report the incident or to self-report the ABRA-related incident,” Contee states in his letter. “Instead, Nellie’s Sports Bar carried on with business as usual,” his letter says.
“Later that day, the incident apparently prompted an unscheduled First Amendment assembly in front of the establishment, which drew over a hundred protesters,” Contee wrote in his letter. “During this demonstration, Nellie’s Sports Bar ejected all patrons, locked their doors and closed for business.”
Later that day, Nellie’s announced it was temporarily closing while continuing to pay its employees and while contemplating how best to respond to the incident involving Young and the protests. The establishment has remained closed since that time.
The statement released by Nellie’s through its attorney Andrew Kline on Thursday night disputes Contee’s claim that Nellie’s didn’t call the police during the June 13 altercation.
“According to the ABRA report and contrary to published reports, and even MPD, Nellie’s personnel DID immediately notify MPD as this incident was occurring,” the statement says. “We will continue to work to identify and address all factors which may have given rise to this incident so that Nellie’s will be a safe and welcoming atmosphere for all,” says the statement.
It concludes by saying, “We plan to meet privately with several groups who have expressed concern about our operation so we might best understand all of the issues involved.”
The police report filed by Young lists the incident in which she was dragged down the stairs at Nellie’s as an “assault with significant bodily injury.”
Gay nightlife advocate Mark Lee said the action by ABRA and the ABC Board in response to the Nellie’s incident is standard practice seen when altercations surface at other establishments.
“ABC Board referral to the Office of the Attorney General is a commonly standard procedure in cases of this type and does not represent a finding or judgement in the matter,” Lee told the Blade. “As unfortunate as on-premise patron altercations are, they do sometimes occur at local establishments and are subject to review by both the ABC Board and OAG,” Lee said.
