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You work hard or have rich parents your whole life, and you finally get into the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach. Then, you just get a little too messed up on painkillers and booze one—or three—times, and they have the audacity to kick you out. What do you do? Sue them and tattle, of course. Steve George, yacht owner and former Balboa Bay Club member, filed a lawsuit against the club on Thursday accusing the club of discrimination, the Daily Pilot reports. George said he was ejected after he inadvertently took a Percocet for his broken arm and then drank, not knowing he would have what he called an "adverse reaction," in which he got in an argument with an employee. Other members, he argues in the suit, get to stay in the club despite their much more egregious drunken antics—which he goes on to list, in detail.
The club's lawyer, Mike Caspino, has a different version of events, claiming that this wasn't the only time George got out of hand. The club says he once assaulted an employee, and had the police called on him another time. So regardless of the fact that George paid $15,000 a month for his membership and to dock his two yachts in their marina, the club had no choice but to terminate his membership in the name of safety.
George's five-page tell-all regarding what other members got away with does not list names, but it does list specific incidents. It accuses club members of having sex on the dock or in the bathrooms, using racial slurs, stuffing money into female waitstaff's shirts and going on boat trips but forgetting to take their toddler with them. In a particularly disturbing allegation, George says a woman who appears on a well-known reality TV show was too busy taking shots with her husband to notice that the stroller containing their daughters rolled into a pool. The suit says the girls were saved by a lifeguard. He also accuses members, or their children, of lighting a basketball court on fire. George's lawyer is hoping to confirm all these allegations through depositions, saying these stories come from employees and other members at the Balboa. Caspino said the club isn't sure what he's talking about with all these stories, adding, "I think he has to focus on his own conduct and not that of others."
George is also claiming that the club violated the Americans With Disabilities Act, because George's broken arm constitutes as a disability and the drugs he took were for the broken arm. Caspino says he and the club are all about the ADA, but "we just don't think the ADA was created to protect people who have Oxycodone and then drink to excess."
George's suit doesn't only seek damages… he also wants to be let back in the club, and he doesn't want to have to move his yachts.
