When a man shoved apart two tables, lunged, and carried her out of the Bus Stop Saloon in a chokehold, Marie thought she had been singled out by a random predator.
“I legitimately felt I was about to get beaten up and raped,” the 23-year-old said, who asked to be referred to only as Marie, not her real name, to avoid retaliation. “The R-word was the first word to enter my mind.”
Instead, she recounts, the stranger, accompanied by another man, carried her outside and threw her down with enough force to knock her head on the sidewalk.
“I was hysterically crying and asking him why he did what he did, to which he merely shrugged,” she said.
The man who aggressively ousted her from the Marina dive bar shortly after midnight on Dec. 15 turned out to be a bouncer, Marie said.
According to online reviews and customers who spoke to The Standard, it wasn’t the first time staff have been accused of roughing up female patrons at the 124-year-old Union Street establishment.
“Not a safe place for women!” a Yelp review posted five months earlier cautioned.
But this time, Marie’s allegations — along with photos of the bruises and scrapes on her neck, back, and knee — were enough to spur the San Francisco Police Department to investigate. A week later, SFPD spokesperson Paulina Henderson said that while no arrests have been made, the case remains open.
Bus Stop Saloon’s owner, Jesse Kay-Rugen, has yet to respond to The Standard’s request for comment.
On Friday, a bouncer working the door referred questions to manager Brett Bechelli, who said saloon staff are cooperating with police and reviewing video from the night in question.
“I can’t say anything other than that,” Bechelli said. “We’re aware of the complaint, and we’re talking to police.”
Marie said she hopes other patrons are aware of the bar’s track record. Leah, another woman who said bar staff aggressively kicked out her and a friend early last month, echoed the sentiment.
“It seems like a bouncer’s job should be to de-escalate,” Leah said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But they did the opposite.”
On Nov. 2, she said, a friend arrived at the Bus Stop Saloon before her with a handful of acquaintances. Everyone else got in, but the guy at the door stopped Leah’s friend, saying she was too drunk. When the woman asked if he’d reconsider, he allegedly shoved her.
Leah says she showed up about 20 minutes later and asked the bouncer, “Why did you put your hands on my friend? Don’t put your hands on women.”
Then, she said, the bouncer shoved her away, too.
“It was just so unnecessary,” she told The Standard.
Leah and her friend said their diminutive stature made them vulnerable to brute force.
“We’re in our 20s, we’re short, we’re not, like, bodybuilders,” Leah said. “And he’s stocky, tall — I felt the height difference, the size difference.”
She called and emailed the bar owners but said she didn’t get a response. A direct message she sent to the business on Instagram was ignored. So she left a Yelp review.
Marie’s friends did the same, posting reviews about the Dec. 15 encounter. The reviews, along with other negative comments, have since disappeared from the Bus Stop’s main Yelp page. The Standard has reviewed screenshots of the Yelp complaints.
About eight months ago, a user under the handle Jason Snow left a one-star review that described a “very scary moment” when a bouncer responded with surprising force to a trio of patrons.
“They were a bit drunk and had vapes, so he rightfully asked them to leave,” Snow wrote. “However, then on the way out, he grabs the girl, slams her against the wall and throws her to the ground. Maybe they were talking back, but that doesn’t excuse the reaction, especially against a girl half his size.”
In another instance, the bar let two men stay after getting into a fistfight, according to a one-star review left about a year ago under the username Breanna Bullard. “One of the guys then yelled at me for trying to get them kicked out and told me he knows the bartender and is there every week,” she wrote. “Definitely not a safe space for women/anyone who doesn’t want to be involved in physical assault.”
Attempts to reach Bullard and Snow went unanswered.
It’s unclear whether police are investigating the bar beyond the Dec. 15 incident. But the SFPD said it’s soliciting tips and urged anyone with relevant information to call (415) 575-4444 or send a text that begins with “SFPD” to TIP411.