Benidorm bar denies disability hate crime despite ‘midget for rent’ promotion

A BENIDORM bar under fire for offering a “midgets for rent” service has denied it’s committed a hate crime, it has been reported.

The Sun have reported that the manager of Chaplin’s bar has insisted the man who performs for the mainly Brit clientele is a “showman” and he likes his job.

State prosecutors in Alicante have been asked to investigate the bar, following claims it may have committed a hate crime over a controversial customer offer which asks: "Wanna rent a midget?"

The performer is a reportedly a Spanish man named Antonio and he works for around three to four hours a day while dressed up as a policeman or superhero"and takes photos with customers.

Manuel Nieto, manager of the bar, which is near Levante beach, said that "things have been taken out of context".

“He has been on the premises three or four years, and he is very comfortable.”

The Daily Star reported that Mr Nieto said Antonio insists the work he does "is that of showman and he does it because he wants people to like him”.

“His mental health and intelligence is exactly the same or better than anyone else's, so that no one believes that he is being exploited or something like that,” he said.

'SHOWMAN'

“He does it because he wants to, because he likes that job."

Mr Nieto has denied the bar is guilty of discrimination and is "very surprised by all this commotion".

Antonio has been performing for “three or four years” and will continue "as long as he wants, because there is nothing strange in all this”.

The investigation was launched following a complaint from Cermi, an umbrella organisation representing people with disabilities in Spain, about a street sign outside the nightspot and online ad.

Chaplin’s, which is the focus of the complaint, has traditionally attracted a mainly British clientele with acts including a "midget stripper show".

A video posted last year on social media it shows “the best range of naughty cabaret Benidorm has to offer” and footage of a man with dwarfism in a G-string on a Segway.

In a message published on social media at the height of last year’s summer season, the nightspot said: “Our midget stripper show is on at 1am every night at Chaplin's bar.

“Also available to hire for your stag/hen do’s. "Want to handcuff your stag to a midget? "You can at Chaplins.”

'MOCKING AND TAUNTING'

State prosecutors are understood to have been asked to take action by Cermi, who are an umbrella organisation representing people with disabilities in Spain has launched a complaint. 

Legal advisors believe the nightspot is in breach of a international human rights treaty.

A spokesman for the umbrella organisation told Spanish newspaper El Pais: “Mockery and taunting has direct effects on the group that suffers this type of disability and increases the stigma for people of short stature, who are treated as clowns.”

Felipe Orviz, a legal advisor for the northern Spain-based ALPE Achondroplasia Foundation which supports families and children with a form of short-limbed dwarfism called achondroplasia, spoke out about the bar.

Orviz implied that the nightspot was in breach of the international human rights treaty and many people with dwarfism would certainly be offended by such mocking.

Mr Orviz is raising the issue with the local and regional councils, describing the practice of hiring out people with dwarfism as “denigrating” and likening it to the rental of Down syndrome sufferers.