Sedgwick County commissioner kicked out of Old Town bar after bartender altercation

Sedgwick County Commissioner Lacey Cruse was banned from an Old Town bar and nightclub Saturday after she called a bartender a name that the bartender said was racist and that Cruse said was misunderstood in the noisy bar.

Chad Porter, co-owner of XY Bar, a popular gay bar and dance club near Second and Rock Island, said he doesn’t believe Cruse’s explanation and that this was the third time she has been kicked out of his establishment, a charge Cruise denies but XY’s general manager says is accurate.

“I have a line,” Porter said. “And she crossed it.”

Cruse said she went to XY with her boyfriend, Gary Greene, after having a few alcoholic drinks at a HumanKind Ministries humanitarian awards ceremony at Distillery 244, a nearby venue in Old Town.

After Cruse ordered her first alcoholic beverage at the XY bar, she asked the bartender for her name. When the bartender refused to give her name, Cruse decided to give her a nickname.

Depending on who is telling the story, the nickname was either racist or “geeky and nerdy and stupid.”

The bartender, who is African American, explained in a social media post that Cruse said, “Well, then I’ll just call you Shaquetta.”

Porter told commissioners and some city officials in an email that the name was “Chiquita.”

Cruse said she told the bartender that she would call her “Sheena” — as in, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, a leopard-skin-bikini wearing white woman comic book character from the 1930s. “I thought she was fierce,” Cruse said. “And that was the first name that came to my mind.”

The bartender said she replied to the commissioner: “No, you’re (expletive) not, that’s racist as (expletive).” In the social media post, she said that Cruse looked “affronted” after she was accused of being racist. She was then asked to leave and escorted out by security.

“I was mortified when she misheard me,” Cruse said. “I think that her feelings are valid. . . . I respect the fact that she felt dismissed and that it was a derogatory remark. I respect the fact that she thought that. I mean, I think that her feelings are valid. And I want to apologize directly to her.”

Cruse said she agreed to leave but said she didn’t mean to be offensive and later apologized in a Tuesday night video that she later removed from Facebook. Her boyfriend, Greene, said he heard Cruse say the word “Sheena.”

“I’m trying to empower women,” Cruse said. “That’s what I do, even if it comes across in the most ridiculous ways.”

“When she didn’t want to give me her name, I should have recognized that as such,” Cruse said. “I should have walked away, but I didn’t. And for that, I apologize. It was not my intention to cause any issues or turmoil, and unfortunately, that’s what happened.”

Porter, who was out of the country when Cruse was kicked out of his bar, said he trusts his employees who witnessed the name calling and interpreted it as racist and inappropriate. The bartender declined through Porter to be interviewed. She also would not speak to Cruse, who said she called the bartender after the incident to apologize.

The spat culminated in a Wednesday afternoon sit-down meeting at Club Rain, where Porter and Cruse accused each other of being dishonest and ultimately agreed to disagree. Porter, who is a Democrat, called on Cruse, a Democratic candidate seeking re-election in November, to resign. Cruse refused.

Porter sent an email synopsis of the confrontation to Sedgwick County commissioners and two members of the Wichita City Council earlier in the week. He said it was not his intention for it to become public knowledge. Multiple sources provided the email to The Wichita Eagle on Tuesday. Porter agreed to allow an Eagle reporter to sit in on his conversation with Cruse.

“I wanted it to be handled internally, however they handle things,” Porter said. “I wanted them to know how their colleague had treated my employee in a public place. I don’t want it to hurt my business; I just want it to be over.”

Porter said he will now back Cruse’s Republican opponent, Ryan Baty. “I don’t think she’s the right person for that position, given how she treated my employee,” he said.

Cruse said she believes Porter’s interest is political and possibly stems from her vote to shut down bars and other businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Porter disputes that.

“We live in a gotcha society, and I think that there is a target on my back because Republicans want this seat, and they’ll go to any length to get it,” Cruse said.

“I didn’t agree with her on the COVID deal,” Porter said. “But this isn’t politically motivated. I’m a Democrat. She’s a Democrat. I have supported Democrats my entire life. This is me trying to protect my employees and customers — they shouldn’t be treated with disrespect.”

Porter insists this was not a first offense for Cruse. He said she has been removed from his bar on two other occasions.

“Right before COVID,” he said. “She had to be carried out by security because she had too much to drink. And there was another time before that.”

Cruse, in her conversation with Porter and the general manager of XY on Wednesday, said that did not happen.

“This has not happened more than once,” Cruse said. “This is not the story. I have not — I mean, I’m a grown adult. I have not been kicked out. I have not been carried out of bars.”

Cruse said Wednesday that she was wrong to call the bartender any name after she declined to give it.

“Any time a woman asks you to do something, you should respect her wishes,” Cruse said. “And I should have respected her wishes. And for that, I’m very sorry. I am mortified that she took it in the wrong way.”

Cruse, a board member on the Kansas African American History Museum, pointed to her work as a commissioner as evidence she is not racist.

“I championed $450,000 to help the Kansas African American Museum relocate to its new location out under the shadows of the jail. I championed policy my first year that would require commissioners to consider age, race, gender and geography before appointing anyone to an at-large appointment, and I was the one who championed the Lead for America fellow that is now doing diversity, equity and inclusion work and sifting through every single policy that we have. I championed the diversity and equity inclusion officer that we have now hired an outside firm to conduct all of the work to ensure we are an equitable organization. Those are a few of my accomplishments. I was the only commissioner who called for an investigation into Cedric Lofton and then my fellow Commissioner Jim Howell joined in not the same manner, but those are a few of the things that come to mind.”

Cruse has also been invited to be a guest speaker at the African Diaspora Business & Investment Roundtable at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, New York, by the National Ghana Parade Council and Holistic Migration Consult. It’s an extension of her exploration of a trade relationship between Ghana and Sedgwick County that started in early 2020, when she traveled with a member of the African American Council of Elders to Ghana.

“I’m a human being who makes mistakes, but I am not a racist individual,” Cruse said.