(Image source from: Kokomo Tribune)
A Denver landlord who was recorded refusing to allow a Muslim father-son duo to sublease her property ended up paying them $675,000 in a settlement.
According to the lawsuit, the landlord told her tenant to find an “American person … good like you and me” to sublet her property instead of Muslim Rashad Khan and his father. However, the father, son, and tenant too sued her.
Rashad said it was a relief after more than a year of reliving his first experience of someone turning down to work with him and his father, Zuned, because of their religious belief and ethnic group. “My dad and I just wanted to know that there's justice, that she can't do this,” he said.
The dispute focused on a building in the Denver neighborhood of Capitol Hill, surrounded by coffee shops, grocery stores, and homes. Craig Caldwell began renting the building on a corner lot in 2016 but made up his mind to close his fried chicken restaurant there in late 2017.
Caldwell had to continue paying rent for the five-year lease unless he could find someone to sublease it. The Khans seemed like his solution, who wanted to open a second Indian restaurant, Caldwell said as he was shocked when the woman's son blamed the Khans' Islamic faith.
“I didn't believe it, and I didn't think anybody would believe me,” said Caldwell, who is 71 and white. He decided to use a voice recording app on his cellphone during his next conversation with Gatchis. “American person!” Gatchis said in the recording. “They bring all the Muslims from the Middle East, and then I have a problem around here, bam boom, bam boom,” she said.
Attorneys for Gatchis did not return phone or email messages seeking comment on the recordings and settlement. Caldwell had approached Denver attorney Qusair Mohamedbhai, whose firm often handles discrimination claims and other civil rights cases.
Mohamedbhai said proving discrimination is often difficult and credited Caldwell for speaking up. “Businesses in Colorado and across the country should know that these laws are on the books, they are highly enforceable, and that if they will discriminate, people will stand up against them and tell them it is wrong,” the attorney added.
Rashad said his father did not seem surprised by Gatchis' remarks, but he himself was shocked. “Just to look at my name and assume everything in my life, everything that I am,” he said. “I was angry, I was disappointed.”
Rashad came to the United States when he was 11, sponsored by his father, who had a green card and was then working in Phoenix. They later moved to Boulder. He then got a from the University of Colorado Boulder and worked in information technology before teaming up with his dad. Their restaurant's cooking directions are influenced by the family's roots in Bangladesh and England, where Khan was born.
By Sowmya Sangam
