casual sneakers?

last nite we went to a friend's birthday in a function room a bar in the city. our friend had prewarned all the guys to wear a collar to get into the place. zac went out and bought a nice new shirt for the occasion and looked great in his all black "johnny cash" outfit (black shirt, suit jacket and black pants) and his vegan wear shoes. we get to the door and the bouncers looked up and down zac and said he couldn't come in because of his shoes:


they're dress shoes (they actually do look a bit casual in the pic but they look great with a nice outfit)!!! the guy claimed they were sports shoes and pointed to the dress code sign that says no sports shoes. we headed outside and called our friend inside to say zac couldn't get in. our friend came out, took one look at zac and said he looked great and he'd see what he could do. we waited outside while our friend (who happens to be a lawyer) went back in to talk to someone-- we figured he's probably pretty good at arguing a point professionally. 10 min later he came out with who we think was the maitre d' and we were escorted in past the bouncers (who zac really wanted to rub it into) and we went into the party (the guy who escorted us in did give the bouncers a pretty dirty look as we went past). of course because of that incident we spent the whole nite watching guys shoes. there were a LOT of worse looking shoes than zac's (including one guy who works there who was wearing black adidas shoes that looked slightly similar to zac's but with the 3 vertical white stripes-- shouldn't employees that are out on the floor have the same dress code as patrons?). also while we were waiting outside we saw several guys dressed much worse than zac (including one guy with the most ripped up looking casual jeans i've seen in a while-- no worn jeans was also on the dress code) getting inside. we figure the guy just didn't like zac's scruffy gotee he's got going (i don't really like it either). not impressed with the way that bouncer treated zac though. the party was great once we got in (lots of good food and free drinks) but i wouldn't ever want to go back there just cuz of the way we were treated at the door (also didn't really appreciate the moose antler light fixtures thru out the place and the gigantic moose head as a sculpture just inside the door).