Historic NYC lesbian bar files $40M suit over racism claims: ‘I just can’t allow this’
link [archive]New York Post
By
Peter Senzamici
Published Sep. 30, 2024, 6:38 p.m. ET
Manhattan’s Henrietta Hudson — one of the oldest lesbian bars in the country — is suing an angry “woke” crusader who has been ranting online that the gay watering hole is racist to patrons of color.
The bar is demanding $40 million — or at least $1 million for each of the defendant’s e-mails sent to would-be bar-going groups, including some who have already canceled planned events there, the lawsuit said.
“My reputation is something that was built over decades and decades, and I can’t allow — no matter how sick somebody is — I just can’t allow this to just go on and on,” said Lisa Cannistraci, founder and owner of the historic lesbian hangout, to The Post on Monday.
Cannistraci said she “feels bad for” defendant Anne Marie Siroun Bompart” but that her accuser’s defamatory behavior needs to stop.
Bompart, who says she is half Middle Eastern but “white-presenting,” has spent the past month posting a flurry of accusations to Instagram claiming that Herietta Hudson is “very racist,” and “violent” to minorities and women, according to the bar’s lengthy lawsuit filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“I wanted to alert you that Henrietta Hudson is very racist,” Bompart wrote in private messages sent to at least 20 groups, DJ’s and others with potential business ties to the bar, the suit claims.
“Black and brown people I know have experienced violence from white people at both places, and been banned or kicked, etc,” the screenshotted message reads.
One group even canceled an event at the bar after receiving the message, court papers say.
“I got a Henrietta event canceled!” reads the gleeful subject line of an email Bompart sent.
The email contained simply a happy face emoji and a screenshot of a chat with the organization.
“I never wanted to cancel anyone,” Bompart told The Post on Monday. “I was [just] happy that somebody sided with the people who are being injured by this behavior.”
After being banned — unfairly, in Bompart’s opinion — from a neighboring West Village lesbian bar, Cubbyhole, in January, Bompart, 29, discovered that Henrietta Hudson had also placed her on a temporary ban.
Henrietta’s events manager, Hutch Hutchinson, told The Post that Bompart was “threatening” the Cubbyhole’s manager and had sent the establishment “over 100 emails.” Neighborhood gay bars often share information “about any situation that might be dangerous,” Hutchinson said.
So when Bompart showed up to Henrietta, workers asked her to leave.
Cannistraci even met with her, in a spontaneous conversation.
“Not good,” Cannistraci said of Bompart’s reaction to the ban, which included the bar owner allegedly being warned by her, “You’d be sorry.”
It wasn’t until the summer ended that Bompart started her crusade not just over her bans but also involving Henrietta’s alleged “racism” and “violent transgressions.”
“I wanted to alert you that Henrietta Hudson is very racist…Black and Brown people I know have experienced violence from white people…[including} being banned and kicked,” read one of her social-media posts.
“It’s rather extremely clear what’s going on,” Bompart explained to The Post of the bans against her. “It’s a strategy to keep the crowd a little bit on the white side.”
When further pressed over her racism claims, Bompart said she knew of one incident involving physical force — a Yemeni friend had been shoved by another patron and then had her ID taken away — and a person on social media who said she was a black lesbian and was banned from Henrietta Hudson for “no reason.”
While Bompart says she would love to have another conversation with Cannistraci to “try to make things better,” she responded to a cease-and-desist letter from the bar’s lawyer with a barrage of taunts.
In an email to Cannistraci’s lawyer, Thomas Shanahan, Bompart wrote that his letter constituted “racist harassment” and that she was planning on filing a police report.
“My mom is a lawyer btw so I don’t really care, go ahead and sue LMFAO,” another message to Shanahan read.
Later on Instagram, Bompart asked for suggestions for lawyers, stating she is also fine representing herself pro-se.
“I’m unemployed right now so I have all the time in the world,” reads a later email.
Shanahan said, “This is becoming more of a norm where people who have gripes — they take to this alternate universe of social media where people don’t fact check, they don’t do due diligence, and a business that’s contributed to the community for 33 years really can be damaged by any kind of salacious, toxic posts that could arrive viral.”
Cubbyhole declined to comment to The Post.
. No single factor explains these prevalence rates, but there is a strong link between psychological disorders and sexual orientation-related trauma (Cochran, 2001). Approximately 42% of LGB men and women report discrimination based on sexual orientation (Mays & Cochran, 2001), and 75% of elderly LGB individuals describe at least one occurrence of sexual orientation-related victimization in their lifetime (D'Augelli & Grossman, 2001). Because of these types of LGB-specific factors, psychological symptom onset usually occurs earlier, morbidity is often greater, and symptom expression tends to differ in LGB populations (Cochran, 2001).
