A twenty-year NYPD veteran is suing the upscale Westside bowling "lounge" Lucky Strike , which he says barred him from entry because of his race. Officer Aubrey Henry claims that when he tried to attend a friend's birthday party on February 27th ( post-snowstorm ), the bouncers refused to admit him because he was wearing hiking boots. But Henry insists it wasn't the boots, it was his blackness, telling the Daily News , "I thought it was a joke, I couldn't believe it. We're going bowling! You take your shoes off when you go bowling."

Furthermore, while Lucky Strike's dress code prohibits "construction boots," Henry was wearing Nike ACG boots. "They're high-top sneakers!" he tells the News . "It's not even listed on the dress code!" His friend Karen Jemmott futilely pleaded with management to admit Henry, pointing out white patrons with boots similar to Henry's. "They were hitting us with balls of racism and hatred," Jemmott says. "That night, no one cared what we had to say. They were so busy being racist that logic didn't matter."

via Gothamist