Gay couple claims restaurant ousted them for public display of affection

by Ben Briscoe of Dallas Voice

Jimmy Medina and Mike Hazlewood say a manager at Javier’s asked them to leave after Medina sat in Hazlewood’s lap.

Javier’s Gourmet Mexicano restaurant in Uptown is denying allegations that the manager asked a couple to leave because they are gay.

But Jimmy Medina and his partner Mike Hazlewood say they were the targets of anti-gay discrimination on the part of the restaurant management.

Some of the details are undisputed: Medina and Hazlewood were attending a birthday party at Javier’s on Saturday night, Aug. 23. The couple had four rounds of drinks at the bar while waiting for a table. They then stepped out of the main room and into a side hallway to use the restroom. When Medina came out of the restroom, his partner was sitting at small table in the hallway talking on the phone to a friend, and Medina sat down on his Hazlewood’s knee.

The story becomes fuzzy after that.

The couple says that a manager came to them and said, “You all are going to have to leave because that’s inappropriate.”

“At first I thought he was joking,” Medina said. “It took me a while to figure out he was serious.”

Jimmy Medina and his partner Mike Hazlewood at Javier’s earlier that night.

Javier’s manager, Pepe Johnson, said he had customers ask him what kind of place he was running and complain that the two were caressing each other in the hallway. But Medina and Hazlewood say that isn’t true.

“Jimmy and I have been together for a long time,” Hazlewood said. “Hell, we don’t make out at home, much less in public. I was born and raised in Dallas, I know what I’m surrounded by.”

Johnson says they were not kicked out because Medina was sitting on Hazlewood’s lap, but because of the way they reacted when Medina was asked to move to the empty chair next to Hazelwood.

Johnson says the two not only refused his request but also became belligerent about it afterward.

“They started cussing and telling people they were being kicked out for being gay,” he said. “But there are certain behaviors that affect your business that you have to call attention to.”

Johnson went on to say “I didn’t even know they were gay. It’s just not proper.”

He also said if it had been a guy and a girl, he would have done the same thing. In fact, he says, they have had similar instances before with straight couples.

Peje Johnson

But Medina and Hazle wood disagree.

“This was absolutely a gay issue,” Hazlewood said. “He pointed right at us and said, ‘This is inappropriate.’ I can guarantee you that if it had been a man and a women, or even two girls, he would not have said a thing.”

Hazlewood went on to say that no one said anything different when he informed others in his party that they were being kicked out because they were gay.

“It’s just really shocking to me to say the least. We didn’t do anything wrong,” Medina said. “I was touching him. I wasn’t kissing on him ... I was sitting on his lap.”

The two are asking for an apology and for other LGBT community members to stay away from Javier’s.

“I think somehow they need to understand that there is a lot of gay couples that come there and spend a lot of money that may not come there again unless we are treated better,” Hazlewood said.

But Johnson isn’t worried.

“We have a lot of gay customers,” Johnson said. “We don’t go kicking people out.”

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The community newspaper for gay & lesbian Dallas.