Sidney Goodreaux alleges that the New Orleans club’s starter used a racial epithet against African Americans, and claims that when he complained to management, his membership was terminated. The club’s co-owner said the charges are “without merit.”

A member is suing Lakewood Golf Club in New Orleans following a racially charged incident with the club’s starter, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

Sidney Goodreaux went to the club in September to play a round. While waiting to tee off, he got into a conversation with Ronnie Theriot, the club’s starter. Theriot had recently played a course “in the middle of nowhere” in southeast Louisiana, and said that he found it particularly distasteful, mainly because of all of the African Americans he saw around the course. Only he didn’t use the term “African American,” instead opting for the most offensive of racial epithets, the Times-Picayune reported.

That’s what Goodreaux alleges in a lawsuit filed May 12 in Orleans Parish Civil District Court against Lakewood Golf Club and its owners. It says Lakewood violated Goodreaux’s civil rights and created a hostile and abusive environment towards African Americans such as himself. After Goodreaux complained to Lakewood’s management and ownership, instead of firing Theriot, management terminated Goodreaux’s membership in the club, the Times-Picayune reported.

Paul Mitchell, deputy director of the New Orleans Fire Fighters’ Pension Fund, co-owner of the club, said Goodreaux’s charges are “without merit” and that the defendants “will prevail.” He would not discuss the issue further, the Times-Picayune reported.

Lakewood Golf Club opened in the New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers in 1961. It was the center of the region’s golfing world and, at one point, home of the New Orleans Open, now called the Zurich Classic. Dwindling membership in the 1990s drove it to the brink of bankruptcy, at which point, in 2003, the firefighters pension fund bought the club for $6 million. These days, it allows members and non-members alike to play the course, the Times-Picayune reported.

Goodreaux said he has been a member of the club on and off since 1992, the Times-Picayune reported.

The suit summarizes what it says was Theriot’s description to Goodreaux of the other, unidentified golf course: “All he could see on the drive were n——” and “n—— were all around” and “all the stupid n—– children did was wave at us as we drove by,” the Times-Picayune reported

Goodreaux reported the incident to Henry Jerome Maumus, the course manager. Maumus, who is a defendant in the lawsuit, said he would talk to Theriot “about his language,” according to Goodreaux’s suit, filed by attorney Patrick Connick.

Two days later, Goodreaux returned to the club to find Theriot still working on the golf course. Maumus told Goodreaux that Theriot was “sorry for what he said and he did not realize (Goodreaux) was black,” according to the suit.

Goodreaux filed a grievance with Mitchell, and on September 30, he received a call from Thomas Meagher, the pension fund’s secretary. Meagher told him that Theriot had been suspended indefinitely, according to the suit, and that he doubted Goodreaux would ever see Theriot at Lakewood again, the Times-Picayune reported.

Yet four months later, when Goodreaux returned to Lakewood, he once again saw Theriot at work. Goodreaux sent certified letters telling Mitchell and Meagher he was “disappointed that they would retain a known racist on their staff.” A few days later, Goodreaux received a letter from Maumus informing him that his membership at Lakewood had been terminated, the Times-Picayune reported.

Alden Lombard, Goodreaux’s cousin and a firefighter, said he had a conversation about Goodreaux’s membership with Mitchell. The suit says Mitchell told Lombard: “I don’t know who your cousin thinks he is. He can’t tell us what to do. His membership is terminated. He needs to find somewhere else to play golf. We are getting rid of him.”

“Rather than operate within the requirements of the law and within social boundaries of common decency,” the suit says, Lakewood “created (and) maintained an abusive and hostile environment,” Connick wrote in the lawsuit. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages, the Times-Picayune reported.