Bear Bar in Denver Wrangled, Branded Discriminatory

First-round victor opens up about retaliation, gay slurs, and what comes next

Though nine-months new to town, Vito Marzano claims his face wasn’t unknown to security at Denver’s most prominent “bear” bar, the Denver Wrangler. Having visited multiple times, he says he had an established (albeit casual) relationship with a few of the patrons and employees. But add some sunglasses, foundation, and a wig, and Vito says his formerly acceptable ID — and bonhomie with Pat Steimer, the assistant manager working the door that fateful evening on August 31, 2013 — were no longer recognized.

He stepped to the entrance of the bar known locally as just ‘The Wrangler’ in his more feminine presentation, and says he was immediately denied entry for not appearing as he does on his Colorado driver’s license, in spite of being recognized as a patron.

He tells Out Front:

“The night I went, [Pat] said that the gender I was presenting didn’t look like my ID, and I said, ‘Well, that’s discrimination.’ From there, it morphed into, ‘Well, your gender doesn’t match your ID.’ I immediately pulled my wig and sunglasses off and said, ‘Look. It’s me. You know me.’ He said, ‘It doesn’t matter if I know you — I have to ID you.’ With my wig off, I didn’t look that different from my ID. The only difference was I didn’t have a beard and I had some foundation on. He knew who I was.”

Having been involved in activism in New York for a number of years before this incident, Vito felt that what had happened that night wasn’t right. He went back minutes later to videotape The Wrangler’s protocol.

A four-minute video of what follows shows Pat and manager of The Wrangler, Phil Newland, engaging in a heated discussion with Vito outside the entrance. The Wrangler team asserts that because of the scene created, Pat and Phil demand Vito leave the property. When asked repeatedly why, Phil explains: “The law states you must have an appearance-matching ID.”

Vito counters in a later correspondence with Out Front that according to the licensee handbook issued by the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Liquor Enforcement Division, that simply isn’t true.

Per section II.A of the handbook:

Do Patrons have to produce identification, and what kinds of identification can I accept?

Colorado law does not require a patron to produce identification when making a purchase of alcohol beverages. Colorado law does not prohibit underage persons (those persons under the age of 21 years) from entering or remaining in a licensed establishment. However, Colorado law does prohibit any licensed establishment from selling, serving, or giving alcohol beverages to an underage person. Licensees should always check for acceptable proof of age if there is any doubt about the age of the patron. If an acceptable proof of age is not available from the questionable patron, no service or sale should be provided.

In the video, Vito accuses the duo of discrimination. “The reality is you don’t want drag queens in your bar,” he says. The accusation wasn’t a new one: Some members of the Denver community have long decried (via the online business review website Yelp) that the bar, which caters to the overtly masculine, burly, hirsute gay male — “bears,” as they’re known — discriminates against the effeminate, whether male, female, or trans. Denying it, the gentlemen reiterate that the reason Vito is not allowed into their establishment is because the “drag” version of Vito standing before them doesn’t resemble the Vito in the driver’s license.

“The first step they have to do is go to the DMV and take a picture if they’re transgender,” Newland is heard saying in the video.

The next day, Vito created a Facebook group called Boycott the Denver Wrangler. The video, immediately uploaded to YouTube, then the Facebook page, went viral and escalated the incident from heated online conversation to what Vito claims was a virtual tug-of-war for posting rights. The video was removed from YouTube on September 17, 2013 for an alleged privacy violation, but soon found a new home on Vimeo.com.

What hurt Vito most, he says, was brought on by the recourse Phil took against Denver’s all-male, multicultural rugby team, The Colorado Rush — a team on which Carlos Marzano, Vito’s husband, was a board member and one of the team’s coaches. Phil sent The Rush a letter stating he “will not offer financial support” to the team if it allows players or members who support the boycott to remain. This would directly affect the fundraising the team receives from The Wrangler. [Editor’s Note: We have reached out for a follow-up attempt with The Rush. We will update the story if they respond.]

“So The Rush took the side of The Wrangler, and that isn’t what rugby is about. The concept of brotherhood and fraternity, they just took it and threw it out the window for a couple bucks. The Rush immediately started a witch-hunt, though they tried to say they were neutral. Carlos was forced to resign from his position on the team due to his support of me — his husband — and the boycott. The Rush then had a Wrangler employee appointed to the board and refused to allow a [boycott] supporter be on the board. The backlash from The Rush hurt the most.”

He adds: “A lot of the people were very close friends of ours — one of them my husband considered his best friend. He turned on us and sent text messages calling me a fagg*t twice, and not in a joking way — not that it would be ok if he were joking; I hate that word — period. I even contacted The Rush board and said, ‘Hey, this is what one of your board members is doing,’ and their response was basically, ‘We’re going to review our rules.’ I can get over a lot of the crap that the members of the community at large were saying, but people that we’d actually had in our home …”

But a surge of support for Vito came from far and wide. “A lot of lesbians in the Denver community were incredibly supportive, as well as a lot of gay men outside Colorado,” Vito says. “The trans community by and large came out in support, but the drag community was surprisingly a bit more mixed.” When asked why: “I think a lot of that has to do with loyalties — I think I’m perceived as an outsider. I’d only been in Denver for nine months when this all happened, and I was a new drag queen. So I think it might be seen as, ‘Who was I to speak for the drag community here?’ and the fact that The Wrangler raises a lot of money for charity. In fact, Phil Newland said to me flat out [in the video], ‘I have the block on charity in this town.’ I feel they believe they’re beyond reproach. They’re one of the most prominent gay clubs in Denver — maybe even in the state.”

By mid-September, Vito filed a complaint with Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA), an organization (per their website) “dedicated to preserving the integrity of the marketplace and committed to promoting a fair and competitive business environment to Colorado.”

Vito claims that he made many attempts to remedy the situation through mediation — even outside of the agency — but to no avail. Reaching out to the bar’s ownership via the Facebook group, his demands for The Wrangler were outlined. Vito wanted:

• An immediate change to the Wrangler’s discriminatory policy concerning gender;

• [For The Wrangler to] hold a fundraiser where all proceeds will go to an organization that helps to fight transphobia;

• An end to the retaliation against the Colorado Rush RFC (guaranteed two beer busts, same as last year);

• An official apology to all members of the trans- and drag communities.

“The Wrangler sent me a cease and desist letter [for the Facebook postings],” he tells us. “I posted [pics of the letter] immediately.”

All hopes for communication appeared to break down completely. “Phil said [at a later date] that had I called him [the day after the incident], we could have had the issue resolved. I felt that that was bullshit. I felt that he would’ve maintained his position and it would’ve been a waste of time. When he got his lawyers involved, I agreed to meet for mediation at a neutral spot: no lawyers — just Phil and one person, me and one person, and we can hash it out. They turned that down because we were applying conditions.” The next attempt fell through when another member of the Facebook group’s request to mediate was rebuffed.

Shortly after, DORA accepted the discrimination complaint.

“After the complaint was accepted, I requested mediation through DORA,” says Vito. “For that to happen, both sides need to agree to it. [The Wrangler] said no without reason.”

On December 10 of last year, Vito received a letter of response provided to DORA on behalf of The Wrangler. Not only were there allegations of Vito being intoxicated, a signed testimony written by Shawn Smith, who Vito believes is an acquaintance to the staff at The Wrangler, states that prior to the incident at The Wrangler, he’d been with Vito and a group of friends at a Colorado Rush fundraiser held at Hamburger Mary’s. Some of the members were performing in drag. Shawn states that as the night progressed, Vito was becoming “increasingly intoxicated.” His testimony claims that he reminded the group to change out of their drag attire before heading to The Wrangler, as they were all aware of the bar’s appearance-matching form of identification. At this point, Shawn claims Vito refused to change and quotes him: “IF they don’t let me in … then I’m going to cause some SHIT!” He further alleges that Vito’s intention was to “cause a fight.”

Vito balked at the allegations, along with two other Rush players who were with the group that night. Both players subsequently penned disputes of their own against Shawn’s claims and added them to DORA’s investigation cache. Further, in an August 5 chat with Out Front, Vito alleges:

“Shawn approached me at the Eagle [two weeks ago], and at first I didn’t recognize him. When he identified himself, I asked why he was speaking to me. He told me he really liked the drag outfit I had on the night of The Wrangler incident. I then asked him about the letter he wrote in support of The Wrangler to DORA. He was shocked by this and kept repeating that he couldn’t believe [the letter] existed. He really had no recollection of a letter — or at least that’s what he led me to believe. I referenced specific points of the letter, i.e. the alleged confrontation we had when he claimed he said to everyone that [The Wrangler] requires an appearance-matching ID. He claimed he did say that but when I pushed a little harder and said we never even exchanged words, he said he didn’t remember that part. He was skeptical about the letter and said he was upset [The Wrangler] used his name. He did admit that he doesn’t recall any such conversation between us and he openly questioned whether or not a letter was sent.”

Via phone, Vito reinforces: “[If the letter was fabricated], that would be perjury. It could be a case of him lying about submitting that letter, but I’d like to get it on record that I think his word is unreliable.”

In a follow-up interview, Shawn Smith denies the allegations.

“As well, [The Wrangler] never once said to me, ‘You’re too drunk.’ That was never said. That was something that came after, in the revisionist attempt. Never in the video did they say, ‘You’re too drunk.’”

On August 4, the national media — from The New York Times to the UK’s Daily Mail — ascended on Denver when word got out that DORA had issued its official letter of determination. In it, DORA proclaimed that there was substantial evidence to issue a probable cause determination that Vito Marzano was discriminated against via the denial of services from a public accommodation on the basis of his perceived/actual sexual orientation and sex by the Denver Wrangler. Congratulatory statements came from around the globe.

“It’s overwhelming,” he admits. “I really want to thank The [GLBT Center of Colorado]. Although they remained neutral in all this, they were always willing to hold the mediation. The mass of support in Denver came from the trans community, so I want to thank them as well. We held three events called Queer Busts at Compound Basix, where we raised money for trans programming at The GLBT Center and for It Takes A Village, so I’m thankful for them,” he says. (Per It Takes A Village’s website, the group is a non-profit organization on a mission to reduce health and social disparities for people of color in the Denver area.) “Even outside of Denver, the support from the trans community has also been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone in the Boycott the Denver Wrangler movement helped it become a movement on its own. I also want to recognize my husband, who is normally apolitical — this politicized him.”

So with the determination and the newfound momentum, are there newfound demands from Vito, or are the four he outlined months ago his final offer?

“I can’t answer that at the moment. I’ll be conferring with other people who have organically come out as leaders of the boycott. Other people really stepped up to the plate.” Vito’s New York accent comes front and center, propelled by gravitas. “I want to hear any conditions from trans and non-conforming individuals in the state. I want to hear from members of the boycott about what they want to happen. I feel like they should have just as much of a say at mediation. I’m not sure I can have anyone with me at mediation, but if I can, I’d like to bring someone who identifies as trans — these voices really need to be heard.”

So what’s next in the process? “Now it’s in mandatory mediation, which is a logical next step,” he says. “If that breaks down, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission will make a decision on whether or not they want to continue the case. If so, it could go to trial. At that point, the commission becomes the complainant.”

He goes on: “But they could also decide to not take the case, and it just kind of … stays in limbo for the rest of my life, but I believe they’ll take it as it’s a high-profile case and the evidence is abundant. But at this point, it’s letting the process go through and letting DORA do what DORA does. I’m fine with that.”

– – – – – – – – – –

Although Out Front has maintained open correspondence with The Wrangler throughout the process of developing the story in its present state, attempts at comments and additions from representatives from the bar have been denied. However, an official statement given to Out Front early in the writing process by the Denver Wrangler states:

“The Denver Wrangler does not deny entrance or service to anyone, including women and those that identify as transgender. The Denver Wrangler operates under the State of Colorado’s Liquor Laws as well as Civil Laws. Liquor law dictates that licensees must KNOW an individual is of legal drinking age. Liquor law does not allow individuals to present any identification that is not valid and have a photo as proof of identity or age.  Ultimately, Liquor Law determines [whether] or not we are allowed to remain open for business. Finally, the Department of Regulatory Agencies is not a court of law, and does not issue a ‘ruling’ of any kind.”

No other comments were made available from the Denver Wrangler.

Out Front will make online updates to the story as we receive new information.

DORA’s determination letter can be read here in full.

Click here for our initial coverage of the story by former editor Nic Garcia.