Minnesota - City attorney: OK for businesses to ban people displaying motorcycle club gear

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City attorney: OK for businesses to ban people displaying motorcycle club gear – Nov 26, 2013 – Minnesota – By http://www.PostBulletin.com –
Rochester bars and restaurants are not breaking the law when they deny access to people wearing jackets or other clothing that displays the names or symbols of the Rochester Chapter of the Sons of Silence and Med City Crew motorcycle clubs, said Rochester City Attorney Terry Adkins in a letter to the clubs’ lawyer.
Atty Michael Bader, of St. Paul, who represents the Confederation of Clubs of Minnesota, stated in an Oct. 31 letter to Adkins and Rochester Police Chief Roger Peterson that Rochester establishments discriminate against motorcycle club members and that the Rochester P.D. advises the bars and restaurants to do so. Bader did not return phone calls for this report. In a Post-Bulletin interview earlier this month, Bader threatened a lawsuit against the city unless Peterson would try to stop bars and restaurants from denying access to Sons of Silence and Med City Crew members who wear their club’s names, symbols and signs in the establishments.
Such discrimination violates Minnesota Statute 604.12, unless a person’s behavior is endangering other people or property, or the person’s clothing “is obscene or includes the name or symbol of a criminal gang,” according to the statute. The point of disagreement between Bader and Adkins is whether the Rochester Chapter of the Sons of Silence and the Med City Crew are criminal gangs. Bader contends that neither group has shown a “pattern of criminal activity,” which is required by Minnesota Statute 609.229 before establishments can deny access to them. However, after talking with the Rochester P.D. and reviewing the information it provided, Adkins said he found a pattern of criminal activity for the Sons of Silence and the Med City Crew, which supports the Sons of Silence. “The Rochester P.D. tells me that the Sons of Silence is a motorcycle criminal gang with a common name whose members wear clothing containing an identifying sign/symbol,” Adkins stated in his Nov. 18 letter to Bader. Adkins provided the information upon which he based his conclusion, including five criminal incidents between 1999 and 2013 involving Sons of Silence members in Rochester, St. Cloud, Iowa and Colorado. One of the incidents was a large fight at Whiskey Bones Roadhouse in Rochester in Jan 2011.
The Organized Crime and Gang Section of the U.S. Dept of Justice has concluded that the Sons of Silence is “an organization whose members use their motorcycle club as a conduit for criminal enterprises,” Adkins wrote in the letter. “As such, I have concluded that the Sons of Silence is a ‘criminal gang’ as that term is defined by Minn. Stat. 609.229, subd. 1,” Adkins wrote.

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