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Discrimination on the Grounds of Race in Restaurant Access [2007] KRNHRC 7 (1 January 2007)

Foreigners "I" and "J" filed a complaint with the Commission that a restaurant in
Itaewon-dong discriminated against them based on skin color. The complainants said that
employees at a restaurant in Itaewon-dong requested that the complainants show
identification and then said that the restaurant did not accept people from a specific
continent when the complainants ordered food. When the complainants asked the staff
whether they were raising an issue because the complainants were black, they answered "yes."

The restaurant insisted that it checked the identification of all foreign guests, because
there had been some friction between its staff and people from "K" country before. It
claimed that it only restricted access to some people who had damaged the business and
did not discriminate against people from a specific country or people of specific races. It
also insisted that the complainants refused to show their identification and became angry,
even though restaurant staff explained the reason they wanted to see identification.
Meanwhile, a lot of witnesses stated that they were also refused service by the
restaurant only because they were black or came from "K" country at the time when the
complainants were refused service by the restaurant.

After investigation, the Commission ruled that restricting access of people from "K"
county constituted discrimination based on the prejudice that all people from "K" country
have the potential to create an incident simply because a person from "K" country had
created problems in the restaurant before. Therefore, the Commission recommended that
the respondent not refuse guests on the ground of race or country of origin.