Just one day after the story of racism at New York City gay bar Monster went viral, the owner of the club has accepted the resignation of the general manager who ignited the controversy.
Charles Rice, owner of Monster, announced via Facebook that Italo Lopez, the general manager of the popular gay venue, had quit. Lopez sparked a huge backlash after describing a flyer for “Manster”–a drag night hosted by popular queen Honey Davenport–as “like we’re promoting black night and I don’t like to get into black rink night people cool get the wrong idea and is not good for the businesses.” Lopez made the remark to club DJ Mitch Ferrino, who shared the comments with Davenport ahead of her Saturday night performance.
Related: Leaked texts reveal racism at NYC gay bar and the queens are not going quietly
The remarks infuriated Honey Davenport, who expressed concern to Rice via text message. When Rice seemed dismissive of her concerns, Davenport took to the Monster stage and informed a packed crowd of the behind-the-scenes drama. She then refused to perform, dropping her microphone to the floor and storming off stage. The news sent tremors through the NYC club scene, and prompted several other drag queens to pull their acts from Monster as well. House DJ Ferrino also announced he would depart the venue over the remarks.
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Honey Davenport exits the The Manhattan Monster Bar
Posted by Davide Laffe on Saturday, September 29, 2018
Now, in order to quell the backlash, Rice has delivered a statement apologizing for the mess and offering amends. He announced the resignation of Italo Lopez, and that he would begin requiring all Monster employees to attend racial sensitivity training. He also offered words of regret:
“[O]n behalf of The Monster, I am sorry. I can’t take away any of the negative feelings you may have about us as a result of this situation, but I can promise that it does not represent us in the past, present or future. We will use this experience to grow and ensure our words, our behavior and our advertising represent us all.”
Lopez and Davenport have yet to comment on Rice’s words at the time of this writing. In other words, the protest worked, folks.
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Macraymusic
I have a feeling SOME non-black folks are going to be learning and “growing” from these experiences until they can touch the sun. Scram.
johnnymcmxxx
That crappy bar has been a bad Gay joke for the past 20 years. It’s the Gay bar tourists frequented when they didn’t know where the fun bars and clubs were. It’s a dump.
QJ201
it’s been there for 40 years, so I gather for first 20 were good?
Lacuevaman
it’s the mothership of the The Monster that was THE place in Key West in the mid 70s and well into the 80’s. Was later sold and changed to The Hogsbreath Saloon. I remember so well, the dollar dinners, Donna Summers’s “Last Dance” being played at closing….. and in the infamous “BJ Flats” before and after in became a separate bar. Oh those were “heady” days!!!
Lacuevaman
sorry… not mothership…. more like sister… Sven and his wife (cannot think of her name) owned the Key West Monster. It was a great place!
Kangol
He knew who was paying his damned bills! Be a racist white gay scumbag all you want, but when you let a POS moron attack your customers, you are asking to be put out of business!
surreal33
See how money changes hearts and minds.
DCguy
It always amazes me when the owner of the place shows such arrogance that they wouldn’t even respond to the concerns when the employee brought them to them.
If he couldn’t deal with this and get it taken care of maybe he should rethink owning a bar, this didn’t have to go public. He could have apologized to the performer, talked to the manager, gotten the flyer out, and it would be done.
By him not doing anything he really harmed his own business. Just dumb.
feejack412
Gay Minorities WHY do we give so much power to Racist white gays? and why do we seek their acceptance and approval? PLEASE I REALLY DO NEED ANSWERS!
We place so much value on mediocre white gays that we fail to see extraordinary beauty that dwells within us as a minority. We are always seeking for their love/acceptance as if we can not find that within ourselves as a minority. Please let us begin to love ourselves, know our worth, love those who love us, build our minority community and do away with Racist White Gays.
Kangol
In the case of The Monster, the owner is a white man, and it’s a popular venue with black and Latinx patrons, especially now that NYC has fewer gay bars and fewer bars catering to people of color than it once did, so I think that’s why there was an uproar. New York City actually is a majority-minority city; it’s about 27.5% Latinx (of any race), 25% Black (& there’s overlap), 12% Asian American, and 44% white but the major real estate is owned by a comparative small group of people/families that have consolidated power over the last few decades, so rents for bars and clubs catering to POC–or anyone, unless you’re a chain or a boutique catering to the rich–are much higher today (like NYC rents for everything) and harder to start and maintain. NYC’s former bars and clubs (Tracks, Two Potato, Chi Chis, Escuelita’s, Nueva Escuelita’s, Octagon, etc.) catering to POCs were legendary, though.