North Carolina Bar Faces Public Backlash After Kicking Out Gay Couple For Kissing

People are flooding the bar's social media with negative comments and reviews.

Another bar is facing backlash after the owner allegedly kicked out a gay couple for kissing. According to WRAL, Dustin Baker and Andrew Deras were visiting Louie's Sports Pub in Fayetteville, N.C. on September 11 to see a band. The couple say that during their visit the owner, Pam Griffin, approached them and told them to stop showing public displays of affection. "He put his arm around me, he gave me a kiss, and she said this wasn't right, this wasn't OK," Deras says.

Griffin has a slightly different account of the incident, asserting that they were doing more than kissing and that several customers had complained. "I walked up to them calmly. I asked them guys, you know, can you kind of just separate, kind of move apart?" Griffin says. "I don't care if you stay and drink. We don't need to be doing that, and just calm down because you're making people feel uncomfortable." She says that Deras and Baker responded by kissing each other again. "I just gave Andrew a kiss, and that's when she started getting really crazy," Baker recounts. "She's saying, 'This is enough. This is enough,' like basically telling us to get out." The pair paid their bill and left.

The bar owner tells ABC that the couple wasn't asked to leave because they were gay, but rather because they were bothering other customers and were rude. "It was only one reason why they were asked to go, when they disrespected and flipped me off, cussing and interlocked in a very deep kiss, then yes, I am going to ask you to go cause I have numerous customers complaining."

Speaking with the Fayetteville Observer, Griffin says:  "I tried to be as nice as I could. This is a straight bar. I don't mind who comes in — white, black, mixed, Chinese. Everybody's welcome. But you have to respect the kind of place you're in." Since the incident, people across the country have left one-star reviews on the bar's Yelp and Facebook pages (the official page has been removed) accusing the bar of bigotry.

Unfortunately, incidents like this are all too common. In May, a London bar ejected a male couple for kissing in public. Similarly, last spring Memories Pizza became the first business in Indiana to publicly refuse service to LGBTQ customers citing a controversial and discriminatory "religious freedom law." Watch the full Fayetteville report below:

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