Publican refused to serve gay woman

A PUBLICAN was ordered to pay €1,000 to a gay woman after the Equality Tribunal found he had discriminated against her by asking her to leave his pub.

Neither the woman in question nor the publican were named in this case but the publican denied the claim saying she was "in the company of someone who had accidentally and unknowingly knocked over some glasses some weeks previously." The woman claimed he knew she was gay.

In this case, the Equality Officer said he could not accept the publican's spillage argument especially when neither of the women had even been alerted to the fact that a spillage had occurred. He also said he could not understand why the publican had not explained this reasoning to the women when she approached him on the matter days later.

In his ruling, the Equality Officer found that discrimination on the sexual orientation ground had occurred and ordered that the respondent to pay the complainant €1,000 for the hurt and humiliation suffered.

Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) CEO Keith O'Malley said yesterday that such incidents are "not very common" nowadays but would have happened regularly in the past.

Clohessy's bar in Limerick was ordered to pay €200 each to two Traveller women after they were refused lunch in the public bar in January 2002. The bar's owners were also ordered to invite the two women back to the bar for a drink and a meal.

Contesting the case, the owners of the bar said the complainants had been involved in an incident outside the nightclub the previous year and were barred.

However, the Equality Officer found that it was discriminatory to refuse lunch and that the respondent did not rebut the case as he had departed from his regular stated procedure when dealing with customers who had been involved in incidents.

Another six Travellers won up to €1,000 after they took a case against the Wexford Arms on the grounds that they were refused entry to the bar because of their Traveller background.

The pub's owner said they were not refused entry but asked to wait as the bar was busy. However, an independent garda witness said he recalled both witnesses referring to some alleged trouble the previous day.

In his ruling, the Equality Office said that on the balance of probabilities, it was likely they were refused because they were Travellers and ordered that the mother of the family, Mary Berry, be awarded €500 for upset caused and the five others €100 each.