Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 25, 1994 TAG: 9405250167
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON NOTE: ABOVE LENGTH: Medium
Denny's restaurant chain, hit with 4,300 complaints of racial bias from coast to coast, will pay a record $46 million to black patrons and begin what the Justice Department called ``the largest nationwide program ever to avert future discrimination.''
Denny's also will pay more than $8.7 million in lawyers' fees for the black customers, retrain employees, feature minorities in its ads and hire an outside lawyer to monitor civil rights compliance.
In addition, Denny's will conduct 625 unannounced tests next year to see that its 1,500 restaurants stop refusing to serve blacks, imposing cover charges on them, demanding they pay in advance or meet other conditions not required of whites.
The agreements grow out of incidents including:
Six black Secret Service agents' 55-minute wait without being served breakfast in Annapolis, Md., while 15 white agents with them had seconds and thirds.
The $17.7 million the restaurant chain will pay in the Maryland case includes $35,000 to each Secret Service agent and $15,000 each to 12 other customers who claimed discrimination. The rest will be for anyone else identified later as having suffered discrimination.
Eighteen black customers in San Jose, Calif., being asked to pay a cover charge while white customers were not. They will receive $25,000 each. Denny's denied wrongdoing but agreed to pay $28 million to hundreds of customers who have alleged unfair treatment.
A 1993 complaint in Prince William County, Va., alleging two Denny's restaurants refused service to 132 members and chaperons of the Martin Luther King Jr. All Children's Choir because of their race. Denny's agreed to pay $450,000 to choir members, various civil rights groups and charities.
Assistant Attorney General Deval Patrick said his civil rights division is trying to root out lingering discrimination in places such as restaurants, stores and sports arenas.
``I know that the problem is not as great today as it once was, but for all those public accommodations that haven't lost their appetite for racism, I want to warn you here that we are watching,'' Patrick said. He said the Justice Department is investigating 20 more public accommodations cases.
Jerome J. Richardson, chairman of Flagstar Companies Inc., Denny's parent, said at a separate news conference, ``We have no policy and no practice to discriminate against anyone. If there were situations where there was [discrimination], we apologize for that.''
by CNB