A Las Vegas performer says he was discriminated against, humiliated and asked to leave a local shoe store.
Joey Osequera spends his nights as Elektra Del Rio, a popular drag queen. As part of his job, he says he needs new outfits all the time.
"That's a huge part of it," said Osequera. "Everything has to look new every week."
After eight years performing as a drag queen, Osequera never experienced anything like what he says happened while he was trying on shoes at a store with a sign saying "Shoes Shoes Shoes" near Maryland Parkway and Dumont Boulevard in Carnaby Square. He said the manager told him he could only try on three pairs at a time.
"Then she comes back to me a few minutes later and say, 'actually we just instated a new rule, it's only one shoe per person now,'" said Osequera. "A couple seconds later after I try on the next pair of shoes she walks up to me and tells me if she can pull me aside and she doesn't pull me aside. She pulls me right in the middle of the store and tells me that it's actually because I'm making the customers feel uncomfortable, and she's on the phone with the owner. The owner's telling her that he doesn't want to do business with me because he doesn't work with my kind of people."
Osequera said it was the most embarrassing moment of his life.
"Of course, I've always gotten the looks and stuff, it happens, but I've actually never had this happen to me in a public setting," he said. "The store was full of people, and she's telling me this in front of everybody."
Nevada law says a public place cannot discriminate because of a person's "race, color, religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity or expression."
13 Action News crews went inside and spoke to the same woman Osequera said he spoke with.
"Some of the parents were complaining 'cause I guess a lot of people were in here with little kids and I told him, I asked him that some people were complaining, that if he could just try on right next to a different chair," the manager told our crew.
She stayed on the phone with the store's owner the whole time. We also talked to him on the phone. They both denied asking Osequera to leave.
But he is not giving up. He plans to report them to the Better Business Bureau and pursue legal action for what he says was discrimination.
