“If at three in the afternoon I wanted to have a business cocktail, there wasn’t any place to go,” said Vicki King, whose husband recently resigned from the club. Ms. King had privileges at the club as the spouse of a member.

As teenage boys saunter into the sumptuously appointed men’s grill room, their mothers are relegated to the ladies’ grill, down the hall with a hot plate, some card tables and no bar. The club also has a formal dining room, where men and women are welcome, but it is closed between meals and is not a spot to get a drink.

“The ladies’ grill is a very small room where a bunch of little old ladies gather to play cards,” said Wanda Diethelm, a health care executive. “And if you make any noise, they shush you.”

Grumbling about the disparity has gone on for years. But the casus belli was when the Van Sitterts, club members for 30 years, decided two years ago that they wanted to partake in some eggs together in the morning. They appealed to the board of the club to change its policies so they could eat together in the men’s grill room, but were rebuffed.

The couple filed a complaint with the civil rights division of the Arizona attorney general’s office, arguing that although the club is private and not inherently subject to the state’s antidiscrimination laws, it is the equivalent of a public accommodation because it receives much of its revenue from nonmembers, in speeches, tournaments, Rotary Club meetings and the like.

Earlier this month, the attorney general’s office agreed with the couple, issuing an advisory legal opinion that the club needed to comply with the state’s antidiscrimination laws.