By JOSEPH BERGER
As a result of a settlement reached Tuesday with New York City, seven small stores owned by Hasidic merchants in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will not have to pay any fines for posting signs in their windows saying: “No shorts, no barefoot, no sleeveless, no low-cut neckline allowed in this store.”
The signs, the city said when it issued complaints against the shops on Lee Avenue in 2012, discriminated against women and non-Orthodox men. But Jay P. Lefkowitz of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, the pro bono lawyers for the merchants, argued that the signs were no different from those posted in restaurants like the Four Seasons requiring diners to wear jackets and signs posted in the city’s small claims court barring “plunging necklines.”
“It’s inconceivable that it could be a human rights violation for Hasidic Jews to make the same statement that stores and restaurants all over the city make,” Mr. Lefkowitz said in an interview.
The settlement drops the city’s lawsuit and any fines but requires that if the Hasidic merchants decide to post similar dress-code signs in the future they will also make clear that they do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion or gender.
The issue rises to the surface in Williamsburg, where the expanding Hasidic enclave, known for its modest clothing, brushes up against areas favored by bohemians and other more casual dressers.
Rabbi David Niederman, a communal leader of the Satmar Hasidim in Williamsburg, called the settlement a “victory” for the seven merchants. The stores included a bakery, a grocery, a butcher and a shop that sells the distinctive clothing worn by Hasidim.
“It was an outrage,” he said, “for this case to be brought in the first place and even more shocking that as recently as this morning, the New York City Human Rights Commission had the chutzpah to try to impose a $7,500 fine against local businesses that did nothing wrong.”
But the city’s human rights commissioner, Patricia L. Gatling, issued a statement affirming that the original signs did discriminate against women and that now “the commission is satisfied that the store owners understand their obligations under the NYC Human Rights Law.”
Mr. Lefkowitz said the two sides were scheduled to appear for a trial before John Spooner, an administrative law judge for the commission, but another judge, Kevin Casey, took the parties aside for discussions. Mr. Lefkowitz said he had made it clear that the merchants would never pay “a single dollar in fines,” but were willing to state clearly that they did not discriminate on the basis of gender or race. A settlement was reached after an hour