Stella, one of the most popular restaurants in Iowa City, Iowa, has been slammed with dozens of negative reviews on sites like Yelp and Google for discriminating against Trump voters by charging them higher cover.
Stella is located in Johnson County, which is one of the 6 out of 99 Iowa counties that voted for Hillary Clinton in the recently concluded U.S. presidential election. Donald Trump won the state of Iowa, and now the owners of Stella apparently want to get back at those who voted for him by asking them to pay a higher entrance fee, or cover charge, than Clinton or independent candidate voters. According to several 1-star online reviews, this past weekend Trump voters had to pay a $10 cover charge, while Clinton voters only had to cough up $5 to gain entrance. The bizarre payback practice has since been described “disgusting” and “unprofessional”.
Photo: Stella Restaurant/Facebook
The restaurant’s discriminating policy was first reported in a Google review by a regular customer named Eric Stelter. He wrote he visited the restaurant with his wife this weekend and saw a sign on the door that read: “Yes, this is discrimination, but you voted for it.” At first they thought it was a joke, but then the bouncer at the entrance asked them who they voted for in the election, and they learned that “if you voted for Trump, you had to pay $10 to come in. If you voted for Hillary, it was $5 to come in.” So the two of them decided to leave.
“My wife and I laughed it off but after 5 minutes of this completely drunk bouncer going off on Trump voters we decided this is not the type of establishment we want to support,” Stelter added in his review. Apparently, they were not the only ones bothered by Stella’s discriminatory billing system, as the restaurant has received dozens of 1-star reviews on Yelp and Google. It even had to close down its Facebook page, presumably due to all the negative comments people were posting.
Although Stella has refused to officially comment on the situation, an employee told KGAN TV that they did indeed charge different prices based on who customers voted for. It is unclear whether customers could simply lie about who they voted for to save $5, but obviously nobody really cares about that. It’s the principle they have a problem with, and I for one am having problems finding an excuse for this sort of discrimination.
