Montreal woman refused service at gay bar says rights violated

Last Updated: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 | 4:23 PM ET

CBC News

A woman who says she was refused service at a Montreal gay bar because she isn't a man will have her case investigated by the Quebec Human Rights Commission.

Audrey Vachon says she filed the complaint after the staff at Le Stud, in Montreal's gay village, refused to serve her. 

A Quebec woman is taking Montreal's gay bar "Le Stud" to the human rights commission for refusing to serve her because she isn't a man.
(Corinne Smith/CBC)

Vachon, 20, says she and her father, Gilles Vachon, had stopped in at Le Stud on a quiet afternoon recently to kill some time when a waiter came over and told him the bar doesn't serve women.

“He asked us to leave," she told CBC's French-language service. "We said it’s illegal to discriminate like that. But we didn’t have much time to argue. We just left.”

The young student from Longueuil on Montreal's South Shore says she was humiliated. If a homosexual was refused service, she says, she would be the first to stand up for his rights.

Michel Gadoury, the bar's owner, says that with the exception of “women’s night,” his establishment has always enforced a men-only policy.  

“I have a clientele to respect. And the clientele demands a masculine environment. So we make sure it’s masculine,” he said Wednesday.