WASHINGTON -- A Georgetown bar made famous by the Bush twins now has a nasty lawsuit on its hands over a severed finger.
A patron, Washington City Paper reports, has sued Smith Point and is seeking at least $500,000 in damages from a September 2011 incident where his left pinky finger was chopped off when a bar employee allegedly shut a door on it.
The incident started when the patron, Jonathan Dailey, had only spent $12 on the bar's $30 minimum for credit card usage near closing time. Already intoxicated, Smith Point employees suggested he get more drinks to satisfy the minimum. And that's where the situation deteriorated.
According to City Paper:
"You could order seven Coca-Colas—who wants to do that, right?" says Dailey. Instead, according to Dailey, Smith Point employees suggested that Dyer—who had already had six or seven drinks before coming to the bar, according to his lawsuit—meet the minimum by ordering three vodka shots, mixed together with Red Bull and poured into one glass. "The bartender(s) at close should have known that [Dyer] was not in a position to make a reasonable decision to continue to consume alcohol," Dyer's lawsuit reads. Apparently, Dyer was soon so intoxicated that, he alleges in the suit, Smith Point's employees tried to bounce him from the bar.
And that's when the finger became detached, which Dailey didn't notice at first until a police officer notified him he was bleeding all over the neighborhood's sidewalk.
Smith Point didn't respond to City Paper's inquiries on the matter.
Smith Point first gained a high-profile reputation for its famous Bush family patrons. As The New York Times reported in 2005:
The president's 23-year-old daughters have been frequent visitors to Smith Point since moving to Washington after the election, according to several of the bar's regulars, dropping in roughly every two weeks. The bar's owner, Bo Blair, said he has added many of their friends to his guest list. The twins have been known to show up with a posse of up to 30, including old Texas friends, Yale buddies of Barbara's and other children-of-the-prominent like Krystal Shanahan, the daughter of Mike Shanahan, the Denver Broncos coach.
The preppy bar then gained a level of infamy for being ground zero for Late Night Shots, the Georgetown-centric elite private social club. From a 2007 City Paper profile:
LNS operates like MySpace and Facebook, but with a heavy emphasis on booze. To get an invite to the site, you need a connection among the clientele of a few select Georgetown night spots. Users have "drinking buddies" instead of “friends” and must list their favorite bars and restaurants. There are fill-in-the-blanks for your sorority or fraternity, your golf handicap, and your country club. The online profiles show a population dominated by good- looking blondes and smirking guys with athlete’s shoulders. They attended the University of Virginia, as did Landry, UNC, and a smattering of pretty-good-but-not-Ivy schools in the South and Mid-Atlantic. Under the space for employer, they list investment and lobby firms and jobs on the Hill.
Most categorize their political views as conservative. Many are Episcopalian or Presbyterian. The overwhelming majority are white. Some people describe themselves simply as WASP.
Complex magazine recently put Smith Point on its "25 Douchiest Bars In Washington DC" list. "Stay away from this place, unless you want to get stung by a WASP."
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