Fairmount Bar Sues City Paper And Its Source Over 1993 Column

Buccino, who could not be reached for comment last night, was representing Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Joan Brown and was quoted in a 1993 column written by City Paper staffer Howard Altman.

In that column, Altman described what he said was an April 1993 visit by Brown and another woman, Elaine Johnson, to the North Star Bar during which a cockroach crawled past Johnson's plate.

According to the column and the lawsuit, a bartender jokingly warned both women that he had told them to "leave your pets at home."

Brown and Johnson, who are black, sued the paper, saying their rights had been violated by what they considered a racist remark.

The complaint, filed yesterday, says that suit was settled in October 1994 without club officials admitting any wrongdoing.

But in statements made before the settlement and quoted in both Altman's column and the lawsuit, Buccino described the North Star as a "white, yuppie bar" that had tried to be racially selective in its clientele.

The North Star's Kelly declined to talk about the lawsuit, saying: "I think the reason this problem exists is that this went to the media. . . ."

Bruce Schimmel, the paper's owner, declined to discuss the North Star allegations in detail, saying: "I think what we did was not only perfectly legal, but perfectly fair and balanced."