United States v. Boyd
| Decision Date | 24 May 1971 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 474. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Doy E. BOYD and Carl P. Boyd d/b/a Vandy's Bar-B-Q et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Georgia |
Barry H. Weinberg, U. S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.
Cohen Anderson of Anderson & Sanders, Statesboro, Ga., for defendants.
Charles H. Brown of Allen, Edenfield, Brown & Franklin, Statesboro, Ga., for Homer Morgan Parrish, Chief of Police.
FINDINGS OF FACT CONCLUSIONS OF LAW DECREE
At the conclusion of the hearing in this case I dictated into the record findings of fact, reserving for later determination the issue as to whether a substantial portion of the food ingredients served at the defendants' restaurant moved in interstate commerce. Only one area of the law presented any problem to me at the time. Under 42 U.S.C. § 2000a(b) (2) public accommodations include "any restaurant, cafeteria, lunchroom, lunch counter, soda fountain, or other facility principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises." The question arose at the hearing whether the words italicized modify "any restaurant," etc. or whether they merely define "other facility." This issue was settled in Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 377 F. 2d 433, 435-436.
Since the hearing, briefs have been filed.1 Plaintiff has also submitted proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. I have adopted most of the latter and many of the findings.
1. This action was commenced on December 27, 1968 by the United States pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 2000a.
2. The defendants Doy E. Boyd and Carl P. Boyd are the owners and operators of Vandy's Bar-B-Q restaurant, an establishment solely engaged in selling and serving food fit for consumption on the premises, located at the corner of West Vine and South Walnut Streets in Statesboro, Georgia. The restaurant is one block from South Main Street, which is designated as United States Highways 301 and 25, and is the principal north-south road through the City of Statesboro, Georgia. A large parking lot is located directly across the street from the front of the restaurant, and the Statesboro municipal parking lot is located on Walnut Street, one-half block from the restaurant's side entrance.
3. Until 1967, the defendants maintained a sign on the front of the restaurant, visible from Highway 301, which bore the name of the restaurant and an advertisement for Coca-Cola. In July of 1967 the defendants were contacted by federal investigators inquiring into the defendants' racial policies. On July 31, 1967, after consultation with his attorney, the defendant Doy E. Boyd removed the sign. A similar sign is presently affixed flush over the front entrance.
4. From the time Vandy's Bar-B-Q was established at its present location in 1953 until the present, the defendant owners have maintained separate rooms for serving their white and Negro customers. White customers may be served in either room, although customarily they use only the front room which seats 45 persons. Negro customers will be served only in the back room which seats 12 persons. One exception to this policy occurred when a Negro man was served in the front room, but charged $1.00 for a soft drink. The defendant Doy Boyd has testified this was done "to discourage him." The rooms are separated by a wall. On the front side of the wall is the food preparation area, and beyond that, the white dining area (the food is cooked in a pit-area behind the restaurant). Food is served to Negroes in the back room through a pass-through, or window, in the wall.
5. Customers are unable to enter one room directly from the other; entrances to the white and Negro rooms are located respectively at the front (Vine Street) and side (Walnut Street) of the restaurant. Employees may pass between the rooms via a narrow passage, a work area used for washing, dining and food preparation implements, which also leads to the restaurant's storage area. In 1968, the restaurant was destroyed by fire, and thereafter enlarged and rebuilt in its present form, retaining the separate dining rooms.
6. Negro witnesses have testified that when they sought service in the front dining area they were told that service would not be provided to them in the front room, and that they would be served only if they went around to the Negro dining room. Negroes were treated in this manner whether they sought seated or carry-out service. The defendant Doy Boyd has admitted to maintaining racially separate dining rooms, and telling Negroes who entered the front that they would be served only in the back.
7. In answers to interrogatories the defendants have stated they have no policy of knowingly refusing service to interstate travelers, and that the defendants have never communicated to the general public an unwillingness to serve interstate travelers. Interstate travelers are not served on a different basis than other customers, no signs are posted on the restaurant stating interstate travelers are not served, no known interstate traveler has ever been refused service, and no inquiry has ever been made as to whether customers are interstate travelers. All persons who request service are served, with the sole exception of Negro customers who desire to be served in the white dining area. One such Negro customer was an interstate traveler, a resident of California visiting a friend in Statesboro, who wanted to taste a sample of the bar-b-q. He and his friend were told they must go around to the back room to receive service, but they chose not to order rather than be served in the Negro room.
8. In November, 1968, a group of eight or nine Negroes decided to seek to be served in the white portion of the restaurant. They entered, took seats and asked to be served. The evidence indicates that a few colored teenagers gathered across the street to watch. Carl Boyd refused to serve them and informed the Negroes that they would have to go around to the other room. The group refused to leave. The situation seems to have become somewhat tense. Boyd called the police. Lieutenant Howell and a patrolman shortly arrived. The former talked to Mr. Patrick Jones, President of the local N.A.A.C.P. Chapter. He requested them to leave several times, stating that "the man" doesn't want you here. Jones replied: "Am I breaking the law?" Finally, the Lieutenant ordered the Negroes to leave, "I'm telling you to leave." They did so peacefully. There was at no time any physical disturbance or violence on the part of the citizens who sought to be served at the defendants' restaurant. There was uncontradicted evidence that there is no pattern whatever of police enforcement of segregation in any shape or form in Statesboro, unless the occurrence in November, 1968, amounted to same. The Chief and the Lieutenant of the police force contended that they acted only to preserve law and order.
9. The defendants' policy of requiring Negro patrons to use a separate dining area is well known in the City of Statesboro. Through the defendants' enforced racial segregation, continued since 1953, the two dining rooms at Vandy's Bar-B-Q restaurant have become inalterably known by their racial classification; the terms "front room" and "back room" by which the dining areas are known, are undisguised euphemisms for "white room" and "Negro room." Food suppliers of the defendants, two white agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, two white Statesboro policemen and four Negro witnesses all testified that Vandy's Bar-B-Q is reputed throughout the City for maintaining racially segregated dining areas. One Negro witness, who testified he still patronizes the restaurant and therefore regularly frequents the back dining room, said he is afraid to go into the front dining area, and that he would feel uncomfortable there. Given the history of enforced usage of these two rooms, the defendants' racially discriminatory policies will be continued if all customers are offered these rooms as alternative eating facilities.
10. Evidence of the dollar amount and origin of food supplied to the restaurant has centered upon a five month period, September, 1968 through January, 1969. Three food suppliers who serviced the defendants during that period, but had no records of those sales, testified to their average weekly or monthly sales to the defendants.
Dollar Amount Purchased Dollar Amount of Portion Dollar Amount of Portion
by the Defendants Which Traveled in Which Originated
Name of Supplier Interstate Commerce in the State of Georgia
Claussen's Bakery $30.00 per week yearly $30.00 per week yearly All products are prepared
average average in Charleston
South Carolina
Derst Bakery $40.00 to $45.00 per $40.00 to $45.00 per All products made from
week yearly average week yearly average ingredients which have
traveled in interstate
commerce; flour from
Kansas, yeast from New
Jersey, shortening from
Tennessee
Robson's Home Bakery $504.00
...To continue reading
Request your trial