[imagesource:instagram/dustanddynamite]

On Caledon Street in Cape Town’s CBD is a little ace in the hole that prides itself on being an authentic Wild West saloon, complete with shutter doors and antique guns packed to the rafters.

It seems Dust and Dynamite is not just about aesthetics, though, as the owners and employees of the establishment have – on more than one occasion – been accused of living among the Willows, hurling abuse and launching attacks on patrons.

If you take a scroll through some of the Google and Tripadvisor reviews, you’ll notice a sour trend emerge, with a few folks, all beer and skittles, complaining about being allegedly mistreated by the owner and his workers.

Again, the cowboy hangout turned into a version of the Wild West on Friday night when a group of youngsters went to celebrate their friend’s 21st birthday there, only to get maced and called homophobic names.

 

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Someone from the group, who used the name Khanyisa Mabizela to protect her identity, told The Citizen, that the problem began when they were subjected to discrimination from staff who allegedly refused to serve the black members of the group. The group consisted of “half of gay/queer” members.

Mabizela alleged one of the staff members shouted: “I am not serving any of them they need to get the f##k out”.

This was followed by alleged homophobic slurs:

My friends and I got assaulted and hate crimed at a bar in Cape Town (Dust and dynamite) – a thread pic.twitter.com/4wiRKRbOc6

— masana (@gldnsana) April 14, 2024

Mabizela said that she and her friends were surprised by the “completely erratic behaviour”.

“I think most of us were in shock. In 2024 you don’t expect something like this to happen. Homophobia is an issue in SA but for them to be so direct and violent was very shocking. It was also upsetting how helpless we felt,” Mabizela said.

An argument broke out and the owner of the bar then allegedly pepper-sprayed the group:

Kicked out anymore it was more so about the slurs and the way in which we were told to leave. There’s now pepper spray in people’s eyes and lungs. People are crying this guy and his wife are literally laughing the whole time, they have no empathy or remorse pic.twitter.com/8HyY7Sk7Ci

— masana (@gldnsana) April 14, 2024

Mabizela said some members of the group are looking at possibly taking legal action over the incident.

Meanwhile, Dust and Dynamite took to Facebook to explain their side of the story – hard evidence of pepper spraying and homophobic ranting aside.

In a nutshell, the father of the girl having her 21st birthday had approached the bar about hosting the party, and D&D had said that although they were not typically a fan of large groups of youngsters taking up space in the museum of antiques, they would host the group so long as a deposit was paid beforehand. The father, named Gus, apparently didn’t pay a cent before rocking up on Friday night with the kids in tow, which obviously angered the owner to no end, and so he refused them service and kicked them out.

You can read what D&D had to say about the incident below but mind the insults, which are unfortunately racist-toned. You can’t call black folk ‘barbarians’ anymore, guys, no matter how far back in history you’re living:

If the way the bar defends itself against bad online reviews is anything to go by, then they’re not as above board as they claim.

People who have provided one-star reviews on Google, spanning six or so years back, have been called everything from “scumbags” to “dim-witted” and have even been accused of being drug addicts for speaking out.

[source:citizen]