A legal crusade against Ladies' Night

(FORTUNE Small Business) -- Gentlemen, Steve Horner has your back, protecting you from what he calls the "feminist-Marxist" conspiracy that promotes ladies' nights in bars.

You might chuckle - unless, of course, you own such an establishment. Horner, 60, a divorced father of two and a former small-business owner turned author, has spent the past 18 months filing civil rights complaints against Denver bars and clubs that offer ladies' night discounts.

And he's been winning: The Colorado Civil Rights Commission issued a resolution discouraging - if not banning - the promotions, and in two cases a judge awarded Horner $182 and $141.

Still, Denver's entrepreneurs are proving to be endlessly adaptive. Horner's first victim, Proof Niteclub, launched Lipstick Thursdays, where appropriately war-painted men got the same discounts as their sisters.

"That seems like a clever solution to do exactly what bar owners want to do without doing something that would be found illegal," says Northwestern University law professor Kimberly Yuracko.

New York City nightclubs should pay heed to how the West is being won, since a Big Apple crusader has filed lawsuits against such institutions as China Club and Lotus.