Dress Code Dispute: Jersey City Bar Accused Of Racial Profiling

JERSEY CITY, NJ — A downtown Jersey City restaurant is facing harsh criticism after a customer claimed he was racially profiled by a discriminatory dress code policy and denied entry.

CJ Pace, a Black man from Newark, was out for lunch downtown with friends when he was denied entry from The Ashford, he explained on a now-viral social media post. He said the restaurant's bouncer told him he couldn't enter because he was wearing jogger sweatpants, which was against the dress code.

He and his friends were allowed to sit outside and eat but halfway through their meal, they filmed a group of similarly dressed white customers walking into the restaurant without being stopped or questioned.

"being black in america is being told you can’t come inside of an establishment because you have on sweatpants but you can sit outside, and as you sit outside you watch white people walk smoothly inside with sweatpants and hats to the back," Pace's twitter post reads.

The post now has over 13K retweets and over 26k likes on Twitter.

Pace said in the thread that he and his friends tried talking to The Ashford's management, but were only offered a round of free shots rather than an apology or explanation.

Pace told The Daily Voice that the manager brushed off the situation.

The Ashford did not return requests from Patch for comment. The restaurant issued a statement on Tuesday via Instagram saying:"The Ashford and Six26 has a multi-racial ownership group, a multi-racial staff, and serves a multi-racial community. WE ARE ANTI-RACIST. We will take action internally to ensure every team member meets this standard every day."

The statement does not directly address the viral post, dress code or what actions will be taken.

Pace told NJ.com that the statement was noticeably missing an apology and Downtown Councilman James Solomon reiterated his frustration.

Since the incident gained attention on social media, The Ashford has been flooded with negative reviews online calling the restaurant racist and calling for the dress-code policy to be removed. Yelp has since issued a "Public Attention Alert" after an influx of reviews.