Do we have the right to discriminate against people with bad attitudes?

I think it depends. If their bad attitude could conceivably hurt your business, for example, by discouraging other customers, I don’t think they could successfully sue. However, anyone can bring a suit against anyone else, and the defense of same might be costly and difficult.

I wanted to include “if they had the money to do it,” but the post was long enough as it was.

Yeah. If someone had money to burn, could they successfully sue?!

I would think if you can show in court that you are denying service to the person in question as an individual and not denying service because of (protected?) group affiliation it’s no longer discrimination.

We denied the hell out of the individual in question @wonderingwhy!

They can try to do whatever they want. The courts will decide who is on what side of it.

Any business that is service based knows they will have to deal with attitudes and unruly customers. Their customer service approach will have a direct correlation to their business success and longevity.

@blueiiznh Sure. We dealt with our share of normal, everyday jerks. But some people go so far above and beyond that they need to be taken out back and shot. This guy, as it turned out, specialized in setting up small businesses so that he could sue them. Before we went to court I did some research…he’d filed almost 30 small claims lawsuits in a 5 year period. Judge was not happy with him.
At one point, after the judge had reviewed everything, he said to the guy, “If this is even valid, this is a $200 claim, maximum. Why are you asking for $5,000.”
Guy shrugged and said, “Because I can!!”
Judge did not like that guy any more than we did.

As @blueiiznh said: They can make any claim that they want, and pursue any lawsuit that an attorney will take up for them (or they can prosecute it pro se – by themselves) if they want to. But in order to prove discrimination based on one of the protected classes, as described in the law, they have to prove that you have made your determination on that basis.

So if a black person with a bad attitude shows up, and you feel compelled to eject that person based on non-racial (and non otherwise protected) grounds (as you have every right to do), then they’d have to prove that you made the ejection based on one of the ‘protected’ classes. It won’t hurt their case if you have other black guests, if you don’t know the religion of any of your guests, if you have a mix of male and female guests, etc.

@Dutchess_III Yes there are slimeballs like this in the world. I am so sorry to hear you have to deal with this. It is the very reason why good people in the world like you get frustrated with their dream.

Be careful where you step with slimes like this. Protect your investment.

my uncle guido is available if needed. :)

Really. I know some Boilermakers in Local 29 out of Boston. For $50 they’ll break a leg. For $25, they’ll break both legs.

It’s not all that easy to prove discrimination. I think you usually have to prove a pattern of discrimination, and that requires lots of other people who share a class with you who also have been kicked out of the store. A single case is really hard to prove because it’s a “he-said, she-said” kind of thing.

The guy seems to be making a living being an asshole. I’d say nice work if you can get it, but imagine how bitter he must be. I’d rather be a frog than be that guy.

The tourist store I moonlight in has banned several people for shoplifting.
There is a rural halfway house on a secluded property across the highway from us and many of the more well behaved residents get passes to loiter around our tourist hub.

We have no problem with the recovering drug rehabbers shopping in our store, we have even given them small paying gigs such as sweeping our parking lot, cleaning up the oicnic tables, sorting merchandise, etc.

However, there have been a few that are no longer welcome becuase of suspected shoplifting and stealing.

We have no actual “proof”, but, it’s pretty obvious when something has turned up missing and the person in question was the only one in the store during that time.

Admittedly I do discriminate and keep a close eye on the occasions these peeps are in our store.

Hey, call it what you will, but “trusting” known alcohol/drug addicts is pretty damn naive.

Would you be safer by having your sign read “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for NO reason”? or better still, just stop with “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”?

No, because they are not in a protected class.

Bars do this all the time.

When I owned a small store, I banned a few people, too.

Yep, you can kick them to the curb by telling them you don’t want their money or their kind.

Fortunetely, assholes aren’t a protected class under under federal or state anti-discrimination laws. I believe you can kick anyone out of your place of business for any reason that isn’t illegal and I believe it’s only illegal if you discriminate against a member of a protected class.

Depends on whether you think their attitude is attached to race or sexuality or whatever.

Nope! Not if you can prove it, like with a security camera tape or witnesses.

The law is based on probable cause. Knowing this information upfront, a store owner would have the right to ask this person to leave. Its like a known shoplifter enters a store and the owner asks them to leave.

If I were the storeowner, just to be on the safe-side, I would let this person show their bad attitude first and then escort them to the front door.

This happens all the time in pawn shops.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir His attitude was attached to his ass hole.

It goes further than that. If you own a business, it’s ok to discriminate unless it’s against a protected group: women, people over 45, minorities, disabled, or on the basis of sexual preference.