Couple says they were attacked at nightclub in Phoenix for being gay

A couple who said they were attacked early Monday at a restaurant on Roosevelt Row for being gay will hold a press conference Saturday in Phoenix.

Two Arizona men said they were attacked by a group of men at The Golden Margarita nightclub for their sexual orientation, according to a statement released Friday.

An Instagram post that has garnered more than 600 likes from the account named gayprideapparel, which has more than 44,000 followers, shared a video from one of the men that included some details about what happened.

“Tonight, everybody knows that it was (one of the men’s) birthday and my anniversary, so we went downtown,” a man said in the video. “Me and my man got attacked by a lot of straight men tonight.”

One of the men then shows the other in the video with blood stains on his shirt.

“One of the guys who assaulted us did have a gun he was trying to pull out until my friend started screaming for help. People were laughing instead of helping,” the Instagram post said.

The two men and their friend called police after they said restaurant security “failed to protect them,” according to the statement from the west Valley NAACP and the Arizona Unity Collective, a group of civil rights activist organizations in Arizona.

The four Phoenix police officers who responded to the incident were dismissive, said the statement, adding “this was not a bar fight.” The Instagram post said the back of the head of one of the men was swollen and that the other’s face was swollen with a potentially fractured nose.

“Member of the Arizona LGBTQ community continue to be physically assaulted while elected officials do nothing to protect them, their rights and their lives,” the NAACP and Unity Collective statement said.

A Phoenix police spokesperson said police responded to a fight at a business near Fourth and Roosevelt streets, where The Golden Margarita is located, at about 1 a.m. on Monday and found two men with injuries on their faces.

Phoenix fire personnel provided medical treatment for the two men, said Sgt. Mercedes Fortune, a spokesperson for Phoenix police.

Fortune said the two men were impaired and could not provide details of the fight when police tried to gather information from them. Police said one of the men pointed to a woman and said she hit him.

The woman told police that the two men were sitting in an area that was reserved for a private party and that the fight started after the men, who she said were intoxicated, refused to leave, according to Fortune.

No suspect description was provided and no arrests were made, Fortune said.

The Golden Margarita said on Instagram that an incident occurred across the street from their restaurant with two separate parties who were patrons of the restaurant the same evening. The post also said the incident was “neither racial or sexual prejudice, and our staff was not involved.”

“We sincerely apologize for any actions that may have occurred recently at the Golden Margarita restaurant over this past weekend,” the statement from the restaurant said.

The restaurant completed an internal investigation involving the restaurant owners and management to “rectify any issue” and prevent any from happening again, the statement said.

“Here at The Golden Margarita we are big on having an open environment welcoming all people from all walks of life. We do not and will never discriminate against anybody, either it be for their sexual orientation or racial background,” the statement said.

A man who says he is a restaurant manager and in charge of customer relations for the incident posted a video under the username albertlmeeks and said the fight occurred both at and across the street from the restaurant.

“In this situation, we all could have done better, but when things happen outside of our venue, we are not liable for anything that happens outside of our venue,” he said in the video.

The man, who said he is a Black gay man, said he reached out to all involved parties but did not hear back from anyone as of Thursday.

The two men who were attacked will hold a press conference on Saturday at 1 p.m. in collaboration with the NAACP and Unity Collective outside The Golden Margarita to address the incident and victimization of the LGBTQ community.

Local, state and national resources for the LGBTQ community can be found on the Arizona Department of Health Service’s website.