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Cut off Accessibility issues raise questions at AmVets by Jessica Mayrer
they had to leave by 10 p.m., while everyone else was allowed to stay, the case for discrimination would be cut and dry, Brenneman says. “If you start talking about it in terms of gender or race, it’s absolutely outrageous,” she says. “And it really is not very different, frankly. She’s an adult, for goodness sakes.” Mike Might, AmVets’ owner, says he’s not aware of specific incidents involving Raunig. Ultimately, though, he acknowledges his bar just isn’t equipped for wheelchairs. And, as is usually the case, alcohol complicates the situation. Might points to incidents involving groups of friends who brought mobilityimpaired people and left them at the bar. That, he says, puts his staff in a tough spot. “What happens is we have drunk customers hauling them out of there,” he says. “I think the big thing is, who’s going to haul her back out?” Might, who has a prosthetic leg himself, says he’d like to make AmVets Photo by Cathrine L. Walters accessible for everyone, but doing so would be University of Montana student Tess Raunig, who was born with cerebral palsy, says prohibitively expensive. AmVets discriminates against her and other disabled patrons. “They’re denying people “If she wants to give with disabilities the right to go into their establishment,” she says. me $200,000 for an elevator, then we’ll do it,” he “I walked down the stairs with the help says. “I wish we had a ramp. I wish we had generally go out of their way to give her a an elevator.” hand getting in and out of the club. But of a drag queen,” she says. More importantly, Might maintains his Once inside, AmVets staff told her she that isn’t the case at Missoula’s unofficial gay bar, AmVets, and it’s put Raunig at the needed to leave early, Raunig says. She has- business doesn’t discriminate. In fact, he center of a dispute that speaks to the very n’t gone back since, and has called for an thinks that’s not the real issue. He says Raunig’s complaints are just the latest in an all-out boycott of the bar. identity of the establishment. “It makes me really mad that we still ongoing battle for AmVets’ identity. Might “AmVets is the most blatant issue I’ve had to deal with as far as access goes,” have that kind of blatant discrimination says his bar is and always has been a veterans’ establishment, and that doesn’t sit well says Raunig. “They’re denying people going on,” she says. Legally, AmVets is not required to be with the queer community. with disabilities the right to go into their “We are not a gay bar,” he says. “They handicapped accessible. The building was establishment.” Even able-bodied patrons sometimes constructed before Congress passed the want it as theirs exclusively.” Raunig acknowledges she’s seen bad have a tough time navigating the steep Americans with Disability Act in 1990, stairs to the basement bar on Ryman Street. which means it doesn’t have to follow the blood between the proprietor and memBut Raunig isn’t one to be put off. In the stricter accessibility standards in new con- bers of the local queer community. But she past, she’s had friends carry her down struction, says Disability Rights Montana says that’s not what this is about. It’s about providing the same opportunities to all AmVets’ stairs, much to the bar’s dismay. Attorney Beth Brenneman. But Brenneman says AmVets enters people. She says during the course of two years, “My issues with him are strictly based staffers increasingly tried to limit her alco- dangerous legal territory if it forces a dishol intake and time spent inside the bar. abled person to comply with a different set on the access,” she says. “It’s not because Presumably, she says, they were concerned of rules—like limiting servings or leaving I’m gay…It’s not accessible. That’s the point. And I don’t know if the gay commuearly—than able-bodied individuals. about her safety. “That’s a whole other bag of ham- nity necessarily wants his bar.” Though irritated, Raunig initially didn’t make waves. But the discrimination got mers,” Brenneman says. If a black person or a woman were told worse, she says. During an incident last jmayrer@missoulanews.com Most of the time, not much slows down Tess Raunig. And that’s fortunate, considering the wheelchair-bound University of Montana student, who was born with cerebral palsy, has a lot to do. Raunig, 23, sings in a band, is the reining Ms. Gay Missoula and dons a mustache every so often for drag shows around town. When Raunig goes out in the evening, the bars she frequents are usually wheelchair accessible. If not, Raunig says staffers
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winter, an AmVets employee stopped her as friends carried her down the stairs, saying she was a fire hazard and couldn’t enter the club. “The bouncer comes up and he’s like, ‘You can’t be down here.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m halfway down the stairs, okay? Just let me come down.’” Raunig recalls he then said, “‘Well, you can get up as easily as you came down.’” Friends hoisted Raunig back up the stairs, and she tried a different approach.