Photo by christaki

No, this isn’t a racial thing more than it’s a humor thing.

The Post’s Mike DeBonis reports that the D.C. Office of Human Rights came down on H Street watering hole The Pug not because it had discriminated against an employee, but rather because it comically named a drink after something Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) said:

Walk into The Pug today, and you can order a beer or a shot, but you can no longer order “Marion Berry’s Dirty Asian Summer Punch.”

The punch, a fruity vodka concoction, was whipped up by the H Street NE bar’s owner, Tony Tomelden, as an admittedly crude but satirical tribute to D.C. Council member Marion Barry’s controversial comments this year criticizing Asian shop owners and Filipino nurses. “The Ward 8 Special,” he called it.

“I put it up there for a reason,” Tomelden said. “He gets away with this stuff continuously.”

There’s more: Drawn on a chalkboard behind the bar was an advertisement for the punch featuring an Asian caricature — bald, with slanted eyes and buck teeth. “No tickee, no punchee,” the sign says.

As I said, admittedly crude. To many, just plain offensive. But illegal?

The sign was removed Friday after a city agency threatened to drag Tomelden before the D.C. Commission on Human Rights in a rare display of the city’s little-known power to regulate speech in places of public accommodation.

According to the Office of Human Rights, which enforces the city’s expansive Human Rights Act, the sign advertising the drink violated a provision of the act that prohibits posting ads or signs that would cause a person to feel that they would be denied accommodations or service based on their race, class, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and various other characteristics. DeBonis writes that the bar was ordered to remove the sign lest it run the risk of a $10,000 fine. It did so last week. (Ironically enough, the bar also has a sign that says “You are always welcome here.”)

Is this a case of a bunch of bureaucrats not getting a joke, or did The Pug go too far in making a joke at Barry’s expense? Speaking of, will the Office of Human Rights come down on Barry for his comments?