Turmoil over turban no feather in bar’s cap

The great thing about the OC Turban Flap is this: The actual damage is microscopic, while the underlying principle can be pumped up to Brown vs. Board of Education proportions. The “victim” is not physically or financially injured, but the implications are so menacing that you can, if you try hard enough, see the outline of Jim Crow in the background. As has been widely reported, Sanjum Paul Sing Samagh, a UC Irvine medical student who always wears a Sikh turban in public, was turned away from a Costa Mesa bar that does not allow its patrons to wear hats. Big deal, you say? As discrimination goes, this rebuff hardly ranks with Rosa Parks. Gather your party and go to another joint where hats (and, therefore, turbans) are allowed. Really, who has time to make a federal case out of such a trivial affront? That’s the grumbling get-over-yourself view. But if one is so inclined – and Samagh is, along with his Rancho Bernardo family and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund – you can take this front-door rejection and rev up the civil-rights engine to the red line. A hat is one thing, they contend, a Sikh turban another. The two are as similar as a Yankee cap and a Jewish yarmulke. The hat can be taken off at will. (Or when your mother lays down the law at the dinner table.) The turban can’t be removed without also removing the faith. For practicing Sikhs, turbans are sacred expressions of identity. Conflating the two types of “headgears” – baseball caps and turbans – does appear to discriminate on the basis of religion, a dicey move under the Constitution. This, you would think, is the sort of issue best broached by the legal bar, not a dance bar. OK, it’s understandable why the Pierce Street Annex might want to enforce a hat-free zone in its raucous confines. Expressive hats among well-lubricated clubbers can be like gang (or, maybe more provocatively, USC or UCLA) colors on the head. A bar is certainly within its rights to impose a dress code that raises the sartorial tone – and preserves the peace – as patrons drink, mingle and dance to hip-hop music. Ironically, in taking a step to improve its image and pacify the mood, the Annex has punched itself in the eye. It is now a lightning rod for the daily slights suffered by the nation’s more than 150,000 Sikhs, a non-Muslim religious group that has been ignorantly subjected to anti-Muslim prejudice. Adding injury to insult, the Annex is a target of a pro-Samagh UC Irvine boycott. It’s unclear what the student stiff-arm will do to the bar receipts, but it can’t help in a competitive nightclub market. So what should the Annex have done on the night of Jan. 25? It’s simple. The management should have realized that its policy did not anticipate someone like Samagh. Every rule has exceptions. This was one such occasion. Think about it. What would the Annex do for a cancer patient wearing an inoffensive cap to hide his bald head? Tell him to go someplace else to dance? If you did, how would you sleep at night? The Annex’s owner reportedly told Samagh and his aghast friends that he was a lawyer and that he had the right to treat all headgear as headgear, period. In a legal sense, that may be true. But in a business sense, it’s self-defeating to defend it. This bar has been open for about 32 years. It’s survived all sorts of changes in a trendy market. In short, it’s adapted. Now it’s time to adapt again. If the no-hat policy is retained, a bright line should be drawn between commercial headgear and a religious turban. Granted, someone in a do-rag might push for “equal” treatment at the door. “It’s an expression of my Rasta religion, man.” That may be awkward to deal with, but nothing like the negative publicity the bar is experiencing now. As civil-rights stages go, the OC bar is, at best, a symbol of more serious confrontations. Sikhs have been taken off commercial flights because of the ceremonial daggers their faith can require them to carry. In Europe, the failure of devout Muslims to assimilate in dress has sent shock waves through France and Britain. Distrust of Muslim immigrants fuels the debate. So far, Samagh is asking for is an apology and a change of bar policy. That should be so easy. That is, unless the Annex has a thing about serving Sikhs. In which case, the bar deserves to lose its hat.

He was denied entry for wearing a turban By Lisa Petrillo UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER February 9, 2007 A turban-wearing Rancho Bernardo medical school student claims he was discriminated against when he was turned away from a popular college hangout. The bar in Orange County has a “no hat” rule. But Sanjum Paul Singh Samagh, an American-born Sikh, said he tried to explain to the bar owner that his black turban was a centuries-old religious symbol, not a fashion statement. Samagh, a Stanford University graduate, has now joined forces with a national civil rights organization demanding a public apology and a policy change from the Pierce Street Annex bar in Costa Mesa. “It may be a small thing, just getting into a bar to have a beer with my classmates, but it’s the tiny things in life that add up,” Samagh said. “If I don’t fight the fight, then what happens the next time?” His classmates at the University of California Irvine Medical School have declared a boycott against the bar. Pierce Street Annex officials did not respond to media questions about their policy or the incident. It began Jan. 25, a Thursday, generally a popular night of cut-rate drinks at the bar. Samagh, 24, said he and about 20 classmates headed to the Annex to celebrate a birthday and the end of exams for the first-year medical students. Samagh said he reacted with shock when the bar owner barred his entry, telling him that headgear was headgear, religious or not. “He kept saying he was a lawyer and he knew his rights, and I tried to talk to him, one professional to another, but he was adamant,” Samagh said. He and his parents, Pam and Paul Samagh of Rancho Bernardo, said they have joined forces with the Washington, D.C.-based Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, formally requesting an apology. They are pursuing the action, they say, to raise awareness of acts of discrimination against Sikhs. California is home to one of the largest Sikh populations in the United States, numbering more than 150,000 people, according to the Sikh organization. The Samagh family has been active in Poway’s Sikh temple, where an official there said that blatant acts of discrimination against local Sikhs have been rare. Paul Samagh said the biggest problem he experienced living in San Diego County was people mistaking him for a Muslim, because of the turban and beard that he and most Sikhs wear. It became dangerous for Sikhs for a brief period after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks, he said. “People . . . threatened to kill me more than once,” said Paul Samagh, who owns gas stations now but ran a gourmet food store in Poway at the time. “I just stopped going to work after 9/11.” The Samagh family said they never experienced outright discrimination while they raised their children in San Diego’s North County. Their son was class president, played basketball and was on Rancho Bernardo High School’s varsity tennis team – always wearing the turban. He also was senior class valedictorian. Nationally, the Sikh American Defense group said they encounter anti-Sikh bias incidents at least a few times a month, although generally the problems can be resolved quickly. Recently, a Sikh youth was turned down as a volunteer for a local police department in Northern California because of a no-beard policy, said Rajbir Singh Datta of the Sikh American Defense group, who successfully fought the rule. “You have to pursue every single one of these cases,” Datta said. “What we want to do is have a society where Sikhs are not looked upon as foreigners. They are part of the fabric of the diversity of the United States.”

By JEFF OVERLEY THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER COSTA MESA – Is a turban the same as a hat? That question has stoked a debate about religious freedom that’s pitting a local medical student against a Costa Mesa nightclub. Sanjum Paul Singh Samagh, a 24-year-old living on campus at UC Irvine, says Sikh attire cost him entry to the Pierce Street Annex bar, where the dress code prohibits hats. On Jan. 25, Samagh arrived at the watering hole with about 20 friends. The bar’s owner refused to let him in, citing the dress code, Samagh and several friends say. “It’s not a fashion statement I’m trying to make,” Samagh recalled telling the owner, explaining that his black cotton turban, or dastaar, is worn for religious reasons. The bar’s owner, Doug Adsit, did not return several calls. A woman who identified herself as the bar’s manager declined to comment. Samagh and his friends left Pierce Street Annex after he was denied entry, but aren’t letting the incident slide, instead calling for a boycott. “My classmates are amazing; they stood up for me,” Samagh said. The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national advocacy group, wants an apology and a policy change. “This is blatantly discriminatory,” said Rajbir Singh Datta, the group’s executive director. “You’re trying to have fun with your friends, and you’re forced to stay outside because of your religion.” The incident’s legal underpinnings are unclear. Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor, said that under state law, the bar would only be liable if it intentionally discriminated. The dress code “may burden Sikhs … more than it burdens others, but … that’s not something the bar has to worry about,” Volokh said. Under federal law, Samagh might have a case, because rulings have varied, Volokh added. Chapman University associate law professor Lawrence Rosenthal said that if Samagh made clear the turban was religiously important, the bar might need to accommodate him. Friends of Samagh’s who were at Pierce Street Annex say that while they disagree with Adsit, the bar owner was polite. “He was not disrespectful,” friend Paola Case recalled. “He said, ‘Ma’am, this is not a policy intended to discriminate against people.’ ” Nonetheless, Case said the incident was “reminiscent of Jim Crow” laws. “If I have to make an exception for him, I have to make an exception for everyone,” friend Jon Falakassa recalled Adsit as saying.

COSTA MESA, Calif. – A national Sikh-American advocacy group has asked a bar for an apology and a policy change after its owner allegedly refused to let a man enter because his turban violated a dress code prohibiting hats. “This is blatantly discriminatory,” Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund director Rajbir Singh Datta said this week. “You’re trying to have fun with your friends, and you’re forced to stay outside because of your religion.” Sanjum Paul Singh Samagh, a 24-year-old University of California, Irvine, medical student, said the Pierce Street Annex bar turned him away on Jan. 25 when he refused to remove his black cotton turban, or dastaar. Samagh said he tried to explain to owner Doug Adsit that he wears the headpiece for religious reasons, but that Adsit refused to make an exception. A woman who identified herself to The Orange County Register as the bar’s manager declined to comment. A phone call seeking comment from Pierce Street Annex was not answered Thursday [http://www.mercurynews.com/]

Washington, D.C., February 2, 2007 — On January 25 2007, Mr. Sanjum Paul Singh Samagh, a first year medical school student at the University of California – Irvine Medical School (UCI SOM), was denied entrance to the Pierce Street Annex in Costa Mesa, California, because his religiously mandated head-covering, called a dastaar (or turban), violated the business’s “no hat’s” policy. Mr. Samagh entered the Pierce Street Annex to join his medical school classmates in celebrating another classmate’s birthday.  When trying to gain entrance to the establishment, the security guard noted that Mr. Samagh was wearing a religious head covering, and that it would not be a problem, but advised that he speak to the owner. The owner, Mr. Douglas Adsit, then informed Mr. Samagh that the Pierce Street Annex does not allow entry to anyone wearing “headgear” and denied him entry.  After hearing the stance of Mr. Adsit, the group of 20 students whom Mr. Asagh was supposed to meet, left the establishment and moved the celebration to another location. In a show of solidarity, the UCI SOM first and second year students have formally implemented a boycott against any medical school functions being held at the Pierce Street Annex until this issue is resolved to the satisfaction of Mr. Samagh. In response to this incident, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) noted in a January 27, 2007 letter to Mr. Adsit, “The Sikh turban is a fundamental and integral part of a Sikh’s identity.  It is not a hat or cap that can be removed and put on casually.  The turban is a religious article of faith which has been protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as well as Federal and State courts across the country.” “Business’ whose “no hats” policies do not allow for religious accommodation are in violation of the Freedom of Expression doctrine in the United States Constitution,” stated SALDEF Western Regional Director Kavneet Singh.  “Such acts are blatantly discriminatory by nature and seek to denigrate not only the 500,000 Sikh Americans but also our brothers and sisters in other faith communities who wear religious head-coverings as part of their beliefs.”