A bar in Taupo has decided to raise the drinking age by itself by barring 18 and 19-year olds from the premises. According to the bar owner, the ban is designed to make the bar appeal to "more mature" clients, and that
[l]egally, the bar was entitled to set its own age limit
Well, actually, they're not. Section 44 of the Human Rights Act 1993 forbids discrimination in the provision of goods and services. And "age" (for these purposes, any age over 16) is definied as a prohibited grounds of discrimination in s21. In other words, what this bar is doing is illegal - and as illegal and immoral as refusing to serve people because of the colour of their skin.
Bars can and do do all sorts of things to signal to their target market and indicate that they're trying to appeal to certain demographics. But the moment they start refusing to serve people based on qualifications like age, gender, sexuality or race, then they are breaking the law, and deserve to be clobbered for it.
3 comments:
I believe that clubs in Sydney have been threatened with legal action because they prefer to admit women rather than men (not because they are lesbian clubs, which I'd suspect would get exemption, but because they want to have a good ratio of chicks to blokes).
Posted by Rich : 4/03/2006 10:55:00 PM
The bar should set up a membership club to make themselves 'private'. They would then be able to admit who they like. Anyway, bars should be able to let in who they want. That's partly why bouncers are there.
Posted by Gooner : 4/04/2006 11:02:00 PM
Such utter nonsense. Bars admit or reject people based on what they wear and how they look - they should have the right to reject people on any grounds. It is NOT public property, it is private property and if you don't like it, don't go there.
Posted by Libertyscott : 4/05/2006 03:05:00 AM
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