A woman who claimed bouncers at a Vancouver nightclub made racist jokes about her moccasins and threw her out because she is aboriginal was actually denied entry because she was drunk, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has ruled.

The tribunal dismissed the complaint from Colleen Mitchell White on Monday, finding that doormen at the Roxy downtown did not discriminate against her when they chose to forcibly remove her on March 18, 2009.

“The only reason, I find, that the doormen did not let her in was because they thought she was drunk. Were the circumstances the same, but were the complainant not an aboriginal person, it is unlikely that she would have been treated any differently,” tribunal member Robert Blasina wrote.

He added that Mitchell White was pleasant, polite and well spoken during the hearing, but that wasn’t the case on the night she was kicked out of the Roxy.

“She appeared to have had too much to drink – a mistake likely out of character for her. What had begun as a pleasant outing, turned into a distressing experience,” the decision reads.

Mitchell White, who has Cree, Metis and Ojibwa blood, was visiting the city from Comox and had been drinking with her brother and a friend on the night of the confrontation. They split three pitchers of beer before heading to the Roxy, according to tribunal documents.

On the walk along Granville Street to the bar, Mitchell White found a golf club on the sidewalk and picked it up, reasoning that she’d bring it home with her to Vancouver Island to give to her son.

The golf club was still in her hands when the trio arrived at the Roxy, and the doormen immediately told her she could not bring it with her into the club.

The bouncers told the tribunal that Mitchell White was off balance and slurring her speech when she showed up at the door. They said she swore and became aggressive when they told her she could not bring the golf club in because it could be used as a weapon.

After arguing for a while that she should be allowed to check the club at the door, Mitchell White left the bar and found a homeless man to guard the club for $20.

When she returned a few minutes later, Mitchell White said she was told, “We don’t serve people in moccasins.” She claimed she tried joking with the bouncers, telling them that her ancestors hunted buffalo in those shoes, and was told to go hunt buffalo somewhere else.

Mitchell White said one of the bouncers grabbed her, put her in a headlock and pushed her out the door.

But the bouncers said that they actually told Mitchell White she couldn’t come in because her soft shoes -- which they believed to be slippers -- weren’t in line with the dress code. They said they didn’t even realize she was aboriginal until she began shouting at them about discrimination.

“The preponderance of evidence is that her conduct was loud, profane, and confrontational,” Blasina’s decision for the tribunal reads.

He went on to say that he believed the bouncers when they said they used her footwear as an excuse to bar Mitchell White from the bar.

“I find that she was told this in order to minimize the chance of a confrontation were she told that she appeared to be drunk,” Blasina wrote.

The tribunal had originally refused to hear Mitchell White’s complaint on the ground that it had no reasonable prospect of success. But the B.C. Supreme Court ordered the tribunal to reconsider that decision, and after a second look, she was allowed a full hearing.