Whether you welcome or oppose the velvet-gloved hand of gentrification, a potentially off-putting effect of urban renewal is the rise in attitude that often accompanies a rise in property value. The local bloggers at Hollywood for Ugly People recently recounted an unpleasant run-in with the doorman at the Chi-Cha Lounge, a U Street bar:

“Sorry man. I can’t let you in wearing those sneakers,” the scrawny “bouncer” said to us.

“What? Are you kidding me?” we retorted. “Is this a new policy?”

“Nope.”

“…I was here last Saturday wearing the exact same outfit!”

“Sorry man. I can’t let you in like that. Not on the weekends.”

The experience was apparently so disaffecting that the blog has called for a tongue-in-cheek call to arms against the “bourgeois policies” of the U Street Corridor. We now pose to you the same question HFUP posed to its readers: was that Chi-Cha Lounge bouncer out of line? Are grey New Balances not appropriate bar attire, or has the Chi-Cha Lounge management been hitting their hookahs a bit too hard? As a proud owner and wearer of two pairs of New Balances, this DCist hopes that shoe wear discrimination doesn’t spread outside of U Street. Popped collar discriminination, on the other hand, is still acceptable.