Berlin’s gay representative Alfonso Pantisano (49, SPD) Photo: DPA
By Stephen Peter
Has Berlin’s new queer commissioner Alfonso Pantisano (49, SPD) fueled panic in the LGBT scene with untrue claims? The gay bar “Tom’s Bar” accuses him of that. The traditional restaurant in Schöneberg is threatening legal action because of “damaging allegations”.
Background: On Saturday night there was a bloody fight in “Tom’s Bar”, Pantisano reported on Facebook of two victims and two attackers. According to police, three men were involved in the altercation. According to a spokesman, there was an argument about queue-jumping at the toilet. And: “According to the current status, there was mutual bodily harm. There is no sign of hate crime.” One of the men injured himself on a glass bottle.
But the Senate representative indirectly put the brawl in the vicinity of an anti-gay attack: “This violence must stop. The rainbow neighborhood must become a real safe space,” he wrote on Facebook. “Drug crime, but also all other (hate) crimes that are spreading there, must be punished.”
The gay anti-violence project contradicted Pantisano: “We cannot currently identify an immediate increase in LGBTIQ+ -hostile attacks in the rainbow district,” said a spokesman for the BZ
Now “Tom’s Bar” also speaks up – with clear criticism of Pantisano! There was “no anti-queer or homophobic attack”. “Particularly regrettable in this context is the approach taken by the Queer Commissioner of the Berlin Senate, Mr. Pantisano, who, without knowing the true background, is assuming an anti-queer attack.”
The bar operators also write: “In this context, we reserve the right to take legal action against the reputation-damaging allegations.”
Pantisano has not yet responded to a request from BZ