Vancouver man banned from dance club fails in bid for human rights hearing

VANCOUVER — The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal won’t reconsider its refusal to hear a Vancouver man’s complaint that his dance club banned him for being “creepy,’’ and discriminated against him on the basis of age, sex and race. Mokua Gichuru asked the tribunal to rethink a 2017 finding that the Vancouver Swing Society “has a right to ban individuals for inappropriate behaviour, regardless of sex, age or any other characteristic.’’

Gichuru claimed new evidence from a club member’s March 2017 Facebook post supported his request for reconsideration because he said it revealed the swing club refuses to consider harassment complaints raised by men and won’t listen to “a man’s side of the story.’’

The post, about unrelated sexual assault allegations made two years earlier against an international dance instructor who was black, said the choice to stand with the victim included banning the abuser, a reference Gichuru argued was aimed at him, an older, black man.