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News: March 2007

Los Gatos Camera to shut down; forced to pay $50K for denying service to Jewish man

Mitchell and Tracey Cutler show one of the photos that Los Gatos Camera refused to print, claiming it depicted Jewish Zionist terrorists.

By Cecily Ruttenberg

Mitchell Cutler, owner of La Fondue Restaurant in Saratoga and a member of the Jewish community, won a judgment last month against Los Gatos Camera for denial of service. Less than two weeks later, Los Gatos Camera owner David Muston announced that for unrelated reasons he would close his doors.

Superior Court Judge Marc Poche ruled February 8 that Los Gatos Camera discriminated against Cutler on August 11, 2005 when the camera store refused to take his business. The judge permanently enjoined Los Gatos Camera from “denying any person full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges or services on account of that person's religion or ancestry.”

The judgment ordered Los Gatos Camera to pay Cutler $4,000 prescribed by the Unruh Civil Rights statute, as well as Cutler’s attorney's fees and costs, totaling more than $51,000, not including Muston’s legal fees.

“I think he could have avoided this the first day he made the mistake, by simply apologizing,” said Cutler. “Instead he chose to get up on his soap box to voice his hateful views. I think he got a good slap on the hand.”

The story began when Cutler, 44, entered Los Gatos Camera on August 11, 2005 to order copies of antique family photos from the 20th century, depicting ancestors in Israel and Russia. He chose Los Gatos Camera because they had done a good job reproducing his wife’s family photos from Sweden. He left the dozen black and white photos at the store, expecting to return later for the copies.

The next day however, Cutler received a phone message from store owner David Muston saying he would not print the photos. Incredulous, Cutler phoned Muston, who reportedly told him that the photos were of Zionist terrorists and that he could not copy them.
“I was dumbfounded, and I said, ‘you’re not serious, are you?’ Cutler said. “He said,‘I’m totally serious’. And then I said, ‘I’m going to ask you one more time, will you print these photos? And he said, ‘I’m not going to print them.”

Cutler drove straight to the store with his teenage son to pick up the photos. “Before we went into the store my son asked me if he should take off his Star of David. I told him ‘absolutely not.’”

Cutler picked up his photos and returned home. “I was ready to let it go but my wife urged me to take action.”

“I started going through this whole thought process of, ‘if I had been in the Holocaust, I would have thought, no this can’t be happening,’” said Cutler. “I didn’t want to be one of these people suspended in disbelief, doubting the bad intentions of someone.”

On September 21, 2005, Cutler had his attorney Alan Nudelman file a lawsuit against Muston, charging him with discrimination under California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, a state law that broadly prevents businesses from arbitrarily denying customers products or services based race, religion, gender and creed.

Closing his doors

David Muston, owner of Los Gatos Camera since 2002, says he plans to appeal the lawsuit on the grounds of inadequate legal representation. Muston attempted to represent himself at the trial, however under the law, only an attorney can represent Los Gatos Camera, Inc., as it is a corporation, not an individual.

The Superior Court judgement states “No appearance was made for defendant Los Gatos Camera, Inc.”

“This was a lawyer’s stunt, a last-minute trick,” said Muston.

Muston asserts that he is not anti-Semitic, or racist, only anti-terrorist. “I have a 40-year record of being an impeccable civil rights advocate, but I don’t believe in people putting pictures of terrorists on their walls.”
About the closure of Los Gatos Camera, Muston said there are two reasons. He and his wife have been planning to relocate to Utah for sometime; and he believes the traditional photo processing store is becoming less profitable in the digital camera age.

“It has absolutely nothing to do with the lawsuit. This is something that has been in the works for awhile,” Muston said.

Muston also says that moving out of state will not keep him from appealing the lawsuit. “The case will be continuing,” he said.

In the end
Mitch Cutler says he is satisfied with the court’s judgment. He feels that justice has been served. But the entire experience has left him with a new understanding.

“After a year and a half of watching his [Muston’s] actions, I really believe there are mean-spirited people who want nothing more then to punish Jews for everything they perceive as an injustice in the world,” Cutler said. “This guy thinks that Jews are the problem with everything.”

Cutler said he was also disappointed that no major newspapers reported on this lawsuit. “If this was a black hate crime or a Mexican hate crime, it would be front page news. But because it is a Jewish hate crime, nobody wants to cover it,” he said.

Still, Cutler feels satisfied that he did the right thing and didn’t look the other way when faced with discrimination. The lawsuit took a tremendous amount of time and energy, he says.

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