Lawsuit says Black business owner wouldn’t have been arrested if he were white

The owner of a popular Harlem hangout known for its all-day boozy brunches says he was arrested by the NYPD “for being a conscientious business owner while Black,” according to a new lawsuit, reports the New York Post. Clyde Pemberton, head of the company that owns MIST Harlem on West 116th Street, claims he and two MIST employees were falsely arrested in 2017 for trying to stop two customers from dragging a drunk, unconscious friend out of their establishment. After Pemberton demanded that the women leave their pal behind to await an ambulance, they became violent and shouted racial epithets including “Go back to Africa,” the lawsuit said. When cops arrived, the women claimed Pemberton ordered MIST’s bouncers to keep the women from leaving, which Pemberton denies. The men were charged with unlawful imprisonment and spent up to six hours in a holding cell, according to the Manhattan federal lawsuit. The charges were ultimately tossed, but the arrests have left them $15,000 in the hole and “deeply shaken,” the suit claims.