Leasing A Pub

tinofapples

Hi all ,
Myself and my partner are considering entering into the above mentioned business. She currently works as an assistant bar manager in a country pub (She effectively runs the place) which we have heard is about to come on to the market for lease. She isn't too convinced it's a winner while I'm thinking the opposite. One of her main reasons for uncertainty is the whole situation with Travellers. This pub is situated in a small town which has a halting site. The local travelling community don't tend to be too much trouble but those that come in from other areas cause hassle.

She is quite adament that she isn't prepared to have the hassle of dealing with these F****** (I don't mean all the Travellers just those that behave like animals ) therefore she kinda has her heart set on ignoring the opportunity that will arise soon.

It pissses me off that we have to let this opportunity pass and needless to say I haven't given up hope , yet.

What exactly is the situation with rights of management to refuse entry ? And what victimisation do publicans have to put up with before they can refuse these unruly "customers" ?

Can anyone in the business or with experience in the business tell me more ?

Needless to say I'm not complaining about all travellers , plenty of local ones are served and never cause any hassle .

Cheers
Dave

tinofapples

Okay ,
Any one have any ideas/opinions on this ?


Dave

dmeehan

write to your local TD
ask about the Equal Status Act 2000

corley

Hi,

I only saw this post now so hopefully this information isn't too late!

The Equality Authority is responsible for ensuring that the Equal Status Act 2000 which guarantees that people are not refused access to goods, services and facilities under the nine grounds of the Act is enforced. These nine grounds are: gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race and membership of the Traveller Community. This means that if as a publican you refuse to serve someone/refuse to allow someone onto your premises because of one of these grounds that person can bring a case against you to the Equality Authorithy and if you lose you will pay fine. So basically, it's illegal to refuse to serve someone because they are a traveller. My understanding is that if they're a traveller and you refuse them for another reason (e.g. barred because they caused hassle before, too drunk to serve them etc.) then that is acceptable (but don't take my word on it!).

Personally, I think this legislation is no harm and should have been implemented years ago. While a number of travellers have taken cases against pubs who refused them (and got a lot of publicity) there have been other cases against publicans which got less publicity. These include the Dublin pubs which refused a man entry because he was "too old" (Q Bar), the pub which refused to let a blind man with a guide dog in (the dog was a "fire hazard" - not sure which pub this was) and the pub which refused a 30-year-old Azerbaijani man in because he couldn't produce ID to show he was over 18 (the Turk's Head lost this one on the race ground).

In fairness in the past there were so few pubs that served travellers that any that did generally got swamped. Now that this legislation is in place every pub has to serve them so I don't think there's as big a problem as there was 5-10 years ago.