Made in Chelsea hotspot DSTRKT London to be investigated for ‘racist’ door policy

A high-profile West-End Club is to be investigated for racism, The Tab has learnt.

Soho-based club DSTRKT, which is frequently featured in E4’s Made In Chelsea, is at the centre of a race-row following a series of tweets posted on Sunday Morning claiming that people were turned away from the club due to the colour of their skin.

The tweets were deleted, but Cindy, a postgraduate from Kent and an alleged victim of racial discrimination at DSTRKT subsequently wrote an open letter to the mayor, expressing her despair at the club’s treatment towards black people and urging the Mayor of London to take action.

This morning, Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, has decided to investigate allegations of racism at DSRTKT following fresh claims of a discriminatory door policy and encouraged any witnesses of racism to report it to the police.

This is not the first time DSTRKT has been accused of discrimination. In October 2015 a group of young women claimed that they were not allowed into the club because a promoter said two of them were too dark-skinned and too overweight.

In response, multiple celebrities, including R&B star Omarion and singer Azealia Banks chose to boycott DSTRKT, while around a hundred people protested next to the so-called pick wall outside the club where, according to one protester, “the managers would check the girls out to see if they were hot enough”.

Discriminatory door policies are common across the London clubbing scene, some carried out more explicitly shown than others. Clubbers have described how DSTRKT allegedly use a hand gesture to indicate to people they are not being allowed in, “knowing racism that is conducted in silence is not punished”, claims Cindy in her letter.

According to Tripadvisor, 59 out of the 62 reviews for DSTRKT London rate the club as terrible, the majority of these reviews commenting on the discriminatory staff and racist door policy.

Speaking to BuzzFeed News, Cindy said: “I think the attitude has probably built up over a long period of time where the overall culture in the London clubbing scene tolerates racism. I feel that people who are black are just accepting this behaviour, and then just going to other [nightclubs] instead, but we should be free to go anywhere and we shouldn’t be hindered by our race.”

A spokesperson for DSTRKT said the venue has has always operated an “anti-racist door policy”, claiming they have a zero tolerance policy towards racist comments or behaviour by both staff and customers in the club.