THE manager of a West Australian pub has apologised for posting a note saying indigenous people would not be served at the establishment.

Deborah Ovens, who manages the Denver City Hotel in Coolgardie, posted the note after her iPhone was stolen on March 1. It has since been taken down because she got a replacement phone.

“No indigenous person will be served in this hotel until my Apple iPhone is returned that was stolen on 1st March 2014,” the note read. It also named the indigenous person Ms Ovens suspected of stealing her phone.

media_camera ‘No indigenous person will be served’

The poster has sparked a backlash on social media, and has been shared more than 800 times on Facebook.

Ms Ovens told news.com.au she can’t explain why she wrote the note.

“It was a reaction ... I was angry and I shouldn’t have reacted that way and now I’m paying for it,” she said.

“It wasn’t meant or intended to be detrimental to indigenous people, I was just angry that my phone was gone.”

She says she “didn’t think” before acting.

“Absolutely I can understand the reaction — I just didn’t think before I did it,” she said.

“I didn’t realise it was going to offend so many people. I’m upset at what’s happened and that it’s gotten to this stage.”

The Australian Hotels Association (WA) condemned what it called ‘an isolated and intolerable incident’.

The association’s CEO Bradley Woods said “that any form of discrimination of service based on race is unacceptable, outrageous and something the hotel industry won’t tolerate.

“It’s like someone is trapped in a time warp, in a swamp of the old Bayou of Mississippi in the 1920s,” he said.

“This incident highlights the fact that education around the issue of racial discrimination is still needed in 2014.

“We note that the publican in question has apologised and hope that she learns a very valuable lesson from this incident.”.

Mr Woods said the Australian Hotels Association (WA) is a founding supporter of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s “Racism. It Stops With Me” campaign which invites all Australians to reflect on what they can do to counter racism.

Originally published as ‘No indigenous person will be served’