Report: Woman Raped in Bathroom of Happy Ending on Broome Street

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In case you needed affirmation that the Happy Ending reboot on Broome Street is the furthest thing from an “art bar,” check its recent history. Co-owner Teddy Perweiler was arrested in early July for allegedly assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Julia Fox, in the bar. He was subsequently arrested and banned from entering.

Then last Tuesday night, twenty-five-year-old patron Pepper Ellett was reportedly drugged and later raped by a Happy Ending employee who followed her to the bathroom.

The victim went public with the story (via Gothamist) in an attempt to show that society often still blames the victim in sexual attacks. Even at the level of investigators in the NYPD.

Ellett believes she was drugged because she remembers very little of her time at Happy Ending, despite being careful not to drink too much because she had to be at her job at a Chelsea art gallery the next morning. “I have primarily dated women, I don’t see myself going into the bathroom with a man in the first place,” she said.

Alarmed that something had happened to Ellett in the bathroom, Ellett’s friend alerted the bar’s management and security, and tried to confront the employee, who fled.

Ellett tells us that while she was using the restroom a man entered. “I just saw this dick in my face and I heard a man tell me to suck his dick,” Ellett recalls. “And then I said no and I remember feeling trapped and I remember feeling like I was being held against my will, and then I don’t remember anything after that.”

It gets worse, though. The 5th Precinct began questioning Ellett about her recollection of the incident. Given her alleged testimony, seems more of a blame the victim scenario.

“[The officer] said, ‘Maybe you led him to believe it was okay in some way?’ I kept repeating myself and I got so frustrated. He told me, ‘If it’s his word against yours it’s gonna be years of an uphill legal battle, a lot more strife.’ He was basically deterring me from doing anything about it. I just asked him, ‘Well isn’t rape a crime? Isn’t it a felony?'”

According to the report, co-owner Oliver Stumm fired the employee on the spot that night after managers reviewed the surveillance tape.

Again, art bar?