Class Action Lawsuit Filed After Rapid City, South Dakota Hotel Reportedly Bans Native Americans

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A proposed class action alleges the operators of the Grand Gateway Hotel and Cheers Sports Lounge and Casino in Rapid City, South Dakota have unlawfully discriminated against Native Americans on the basis of their race by refusing to do business with them.

The 19-page lawsuit, filed by a Native American woman and the NDN Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to serving Native American communities, says that the Grand Gateway Hotel’s owner and her son, who manages the Cheers Bar, have discriminatorily barred Native Americans from entering the property in the wake of a March 2022 shooting at the hotel. Per the case, the plaintiffs tried to rent rooms at the Grand Gateway in the days following the shooting, which reportedly occurred in the early hours of Saturday, March 19, and were turned away based solely on their race.

The timeline laid out in the lawsuit begins on March 20, 2022, when defendant Connie Uhre, the Grand Gateway’s owner, reportedly posted on social media that she would “not allow a Native American to enter our business including Cheers” because she cannot tell “who is a bad Native or a good Native.” According to the complaint, the message was in response to a shooting that took place in one of the hotel’s rooms earlier that weekend. The suit says that in another now-deleted post, Uhre again stated that Native Americans were banned from the hotel and bar:

The lawsuit goes on to allege that Connie Uhre’s son, Nicholas Uhre, sent an email around March 20 in which he stated the following [sic throughout]:

The case says that despite the defendants’ “overly racial comments,” the Grand Gateway Hotel and Cheers nevertheless insist that they do not have a policy of discriminating against Native Americans. According to the suit, this claim is merely a pretext for the “intentional racial discrimination” the defendants have shown toward the plaintiffs and proposed class members.

One plaintiff says that she and another Native American woman entered the Grand Gateway on March 21 and attempted to rent a room. According to the case, an employee told the plaintiff that the hotel had a policy against renting rooms to people with “local” identification, which the suit alleges was “mere pretext” to discriminate against the woman based on her race. After initially stating that the so-called policy was official, the hotel employee then backtracked and said it was an attempt to handle the fallout from the owner’s social media posts, the complaint relays.

The plaintiff says she felt “threatened, embarrassed, humiliated, disturbed, and shocked” as a result of the alleged discrimination she faced at the Grand Gateway and feels “unwelcome to return.”

The suit further alleges that members of the NDN Collective entered the Grand Gateway on March 22 and attempted to reserve five rooms on behalf of their organization. According to the case, a hotel employee told the NDN Collective members that even though the rooms were available, the individuals could not rent them due to “issues” that the hotel had. When one NDN Collective member asked to speak to a manager, a person believed to be Nicholas Uhre came up and “forcefully demanded” that the NDN Collective members leave the hotel, the lawsuit alleges.

The individuals say they were “intimidated” by the man’s “threatening demeanor.”

The case states that the plaintiffs did not act in a way that would warrant their exclusion from the Grand Gateway and were denied service merely because of their race and protected status as Native Americans.

The lawsuit looks to represent all Native Americans who have visited or will visit the Grand Gateway Hotel or Cheers Bar.

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