Pub rejects ‘homophobia’ charges, says it follows zero-discrimination policy

 On July 28, two women alleged they were thrown out the hotel on the grounds of their behaviour had offended the sensibilities of other guests. Rasika Gopalakrishnan and Shivangi Singh took to social media to highlight their experience.

“As far as we knew, almost everyone else was enjoying themselves as much as we did, yet why did we draw such unwarranted attention? Why was it so hard to digest that two people of the same sex were dancing together? I was appalled at the way in which we were immediately fetishized by the people around us (sic.)," Gopalakrishnan wrote. The couple asked the hotel for an apology.

Varun Ganeshan, Deepraj Singh and Jai Choudhary who are managing partners denied that they discriminated against the two women. “There have been biased, lopsided, defamatory and baseless allegations hurled at our entrepreneurial venture - Slate, by two individuals on the social media and picked up by a section of the mainstream media. Over the last 27 months that we have been in business, we have had a steady stream of customers from the LGBT community. We respect and welcome customers from different backgrounds, identities and sexual orientation. We follow a zero-discrimination policy. We had even celebrated that historic verdict in our pub. Therefore, to accuse us youngsters of "homophobia" is not just false but downright absurd,” they said in a jointly issued statement.

Talking about the incident, they said, “Here is what transpired at our pub on the night in question. After a few drinks, the two college girls were dancing in a manner that made some of our other customers, uncomfortable. The two girls then locked themselves up in the same cubicle of the washroom for about some time. As the manager was concerned if all was well and some of our other guests wanted to visit the toilet urgently, our female staff politely requested the girls to come out. There was absolutely no question of male bouncers entering the washroom. At no point were we judgmental.”

The management went on to assure that they do not discriminate. “We would like to reassure the girls that we are most definitely not what they have made us out to be.”

When contacted, Shivangi said, “No comments.”