A young blind woman has been left “deeply hurt” after being turfed out of a Central bar because of her disability.
Mike Simora, co-owner of Captain’s in Clyde Street, lives by the maxim “no guns, drugs or blind people allowed”.
Simora has come under fire after he ejected Simbongile Njokwana, 34, from the venue on Friday last week.
He did not deny throwing Njokwana out of his bar, insisting this week that he had done so for her own good.
Njokwana, a Port Elizabeth High Court official, said she was considering approaching the Equality Court in pursuit of justice for the “unconstitutional and unfair treatment” which she said left her traumatised.
She said the incident had reminded her she was not the same as other people, making her feel almost less than human.
“They threw me out of the bar because I’m blind,” she said earlier this week. “For the first time in my life I was reminded that I’m not the same as other people – and that hurts.
“To be made to feel that you’re almost less than human just because you have a disability is not something we should tolerate.
“I am hurt – and emotional scars are worse than physical scars.”
Njokwana said she had been born blind.
Last Friday, she and two friends had decided to go out for drinks at Captain’s, a pub she said she had visited a week earlier with no incident.
“It was around eight in the evening,” she said.
“When we got there the co-owner of the bar approached my friend and asked her if she was with me. When my friend said ‘yes’, he [co-owner] said, ‘no, blind people are not welcome here’.
“My friend asked why not, because I am a normal human being,” Njokwana said.
“I’ve never experienced that in my life. I’ve been going out and nobody has had a problem with me being blind.
“I know that some people don’t understand disabled people but he didn’t even intend listening to me and continued to chase us out,” she said.
“I was very upset because I feel as much as I’m blind it does not give him any right to chase me out. And there is nothing written there to say that blind people are not accepted [there].
“The fact that I’m blind doesn’t make me an object of pity – I don’t have to stay at home when I don’t want to.
“I have the right to be out with my friends, regardless of my disability.”
Njokwana said she was especially surprised because they had been at the bar just a week before.
“I’d understand if I was rude or whatever because I was drinking. Nothing happened. We had our few drinks and called a cab and then we left.”
Sisanda Nurse, Njokwana’s friend and colleague who witnessed the incident, said she was also shocked.
Nurse said Simora had come over and identified himself as Mike, the co-owner of the pub.
She said he asked them to leave the establishment “because we are with a blind person”.
“I asked him why we were being kicked out and he again said, ‘we don’t allow blind people in the bar’.
“I said to him, ‘no, man – if you don’t allow blind people then you are supposed to put up a sign, just like a [do not] smoke sign’,” Nurse said.
“He was furious with me and told us to just get out. He was so mad at us he went to the bouncers and alerted them to kick us out,” Nurse said.
Simora admitted he had asked that Njokwana leave, but said it was for her own safety.
“Yes. What I said was she’s drinking alcohol – what if she falls, if something should have happened like a fight, it’s going to come to me, that problem.
“I asked very nicely because I was worried for her,” he said.
“Before [the incident] we had signs out there [that said] we can’t allow people with a gun, we can’t allow people with a drug, we can’t allow people with a knife.
“We also had that one about blind people [not being allowed].
“This is like a nightclub, what if something happens?
“Sometimes people are fighting, sometimes there’s lots of things [that] happen.
“I don’t want if there’s some problem [that it] come to me. If she comes from work she can sit until [6pm] and then she must go because nighttime I can’t watch only her – I watch lots of things here,” Simora said.
SA National Association for the Blind acting chair Nkosiphendule Goniwe was outraged.
“It was totally outrageous and very harsh. He was just denying that lady her freedom of movement, her freedom to enjoy herself – because she was there to enjoy herself.
“And she’s a grown-up person so I don’t understand why they would give her barriers,” Goniwe said.
“She has to take that matter to the law, she has to seek legal action against the owner of that club because that was very, very wrong. That is pure discrimination and a violation of her human rights.
“Whose rule is [it] that blind people cannot enjoy themselves after six o’clock?
“There’s no way that someone can put time frames for someone else because everybody has the right to enjoy herself or himself at any time.
“That lady is working, she is responsible for herself and it was not the first time that she went to that club so it’s very surprising that she was chased away,” Goniwe said.