Mycroft, what’s your moral stance on this issue?

So if I read your responses correctly without getting into all of the legal discussions, I’ll keep this to a moral one for now, you would not restrict discrimination of any type?

“If you’re kicking out groups of people for a genetic trait or affiliation, it’s harmful to them as a person. ”
and later…
“Now, if you kick out all drunken frat boys, that’s different.”

Like Mycroft you’re drawing a line in the sand between action-based and being-based discrimination. I agree that the law treats these motivations for discrimination very differently. I have no problem with that.

“a man wearing shorts and a t-shirt into a fancy-pants joint… is denied entry based on what he can change and not that which is natural.”

So the real question we are debating is whether behaviour can be considered natural. Perhaps the outcome would be different based on whether the behaviour occurs on public or private property.

“The pool owner may talk about “public health”, but if she talks about it like that, it then implies that this pool is public. ”

I don’t think so. I attest that private property may contain both private and public citizens, but on public property there are no private citizens. I say this generically in application to this specific issue, not as a blanket statement to justify warrantless spying. I suspect that the interpretation of this very matter will be the deciding factor.

P.s., all this talk of bowel movements is starting to make me queasy.

Now, in answer to the first comment, while it is your right to reject anyone, your grounds should in practice be justifiable. If you’re kicking out groups of people for a genetic trait or affiliation, it’s harmful to them as a person. This falls under Torts, a civil wrong. You may not be engaging directly in any form of defamation, but if another owner of a bar sees this, they could be led to believe that all people of group X are inherently bad and thus deny them business. You then run into an issue of someone else’s own prejudices impacting on another’s ability to live.

Now, if you kick out all drunken frat boys, that’s different. Your see, we’re now describing a bunch of people by their actions. Drunkenness is a state of being of which one is legally and morally responsible for. They are not absolved of legal responsibility; they owe a duty of care to those around them. Drunkenness is known to change a person’s behaviour because it lower inhibitions. They then act rowdy or otherwise are disturbing other patrons. This then results in a duty of care being burdened onto the owner. He owes a duty of care to all his other patrons, so he at his discretion can kick these people out.

Let’s now look at Brian’s example. He cites a man wearing shorts and a t-shirt into a fancy-pants joint, and the man is denied entry. He is denied entry based on what he can change and not that which is natural. He has the ability to wear proper clothes but chose not to. If he was denied service based on age, gender, ethnicity or any number of other things then he might have a case.

The pool owner may talk about “public health”, but if she talks about it like that, it then implies that this pool is public. If it’s public, then there should be no active form of discrimination. But then, the pool owner actually alleged that the pool was private. Public health shouldn’t have been her main statement.

If it is about public health, then the ministry in the article made it clear that there wasn’t a health violation involved and that the pool owner is trying to find an actual reason to kick someone out without a true reason. It’s a swallow cop out. If the water was so vile, then perhaps they should make the children cover their mouths and noses so they don’t ingest the water.

The owner also cited “bowel movement”, as if that’s any less sanitary than urinating in the pool. Both are equally as unsanitary, one just looks more gross. She may say that she charges parents if the child defecates in the pool.

I wonder… if the owner would feel the same way if she after she has her child, is subject to this kind of “suggestion” if she was at another pool that was “private”.

I say let capitalism sort itself out in this case. I uphold that the property/service owner has the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason, but it’s also the right of the individual turned away to share her story with the world and seek restitution.

The comments on The Star’s website are telling – there are many opinions stated in support of and in contradiction to her argument that she should be permitted to breastfeed there. As such, I hope the pool owner is not said to be at fault, and the public themselves may judge whether that is the sort of business they want to support. I like to do that with the Better Business Bureau before making a major purchase.

There should be no “the” before blacks. Originally I had “the Irish” and “golf courses” not malls, since that was a well known form of discrimination, but private clubs fall under a different set of laws than malls.

Interesting. Here’s the problem, if your establishment is open to the public, then it’s not entirely private. And denying entry to a group of individuals is simply called discrimination.

Oh, and on an aside. Trying to claim that breastfeeding is for public health concerns is completely bogus and was a way to try to weasel out of it.

So to answer your various questions, they are all alright by me. I don’t know the legality of those scenarios or how the refusal of entry should be conveyed to keep it legal, but I’d hope private property owners are free to make that call themselves.

Where is your line?