John R. Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:

> snip
> I (also a Caucasian) was refused entry to an izakaya for the same 
> reason. When my wife and I phoned them up afterwards they said that 
> they'd had trouble previously. (The fact that I'd been there about a 
> year before and had caused no trouble at all didn't seem to register 
> with them.)
> snip

Many moons ago, I attended a stag party for an American guy who was 
marrying a Japanese lass. This was in Chiba prefecture. Most of the 
attendees were Americans, with me and one or two Japanese guys the 
exceptions. A party of about twenty.
We had a chow-down and piss-up at some place. It was a decent place with 
our party being served in a big tatami room. Good food, lots of beer. We 
had a lot of fun.
Near the front door of the establishment was a wall with lots of 
cubbyholes for regular patrons' "keeper bottles" of whiskey.
When we were on the train heading into Tokyo for more shenanigans, I was 
gob smacked to see about half of the guys proudly displaying the whiskey 
bottles they'd stolen from the place we'd just left. They really crowed 
about how clever they were.
I would utterly support that place for putting up a "no gai-frickin-jin" 
sign. I don't know if they did or not. I slunk off home at the earliest 
opportunity that night and never went near the establishment in question 
again.