More on the Beijing bar ban confusion
According to Beijing Boyce, who has reported his independent findings about the SCMP claims on his blog, this might be just a case of miscommunication. Through his investigations, his sources tell him that bar owners were indeed asked to:
monitor black patrons. He [the bar owner] said the police told the reps that drug dealers are predominantly black in the area. He said the police did not ask bar owners to ban blacks.
In his latest entry Boyce also comments on the SCMP's lack of transparency in reporting:
Apparently the policy [to ban patrons of African descent] is so secret that the police are keeping it from all but a few bar owners who can be trusted to reveal it to foreign journalists.