The Scotsman allows itself a touch of skepticism:
A major UK hospitality chain has launched an investigation after police were called to one of its pubs after a group of women were told they had to leave because they were “transphobic”.
The women, who allege they were threatened by bar staff, left after officers were called to Doctors, on Forrest Road, on Saturday night.
However one of the pub’s employees, who describes himself as an “AGP porn addict male” on his Twitter account, said it was staff who felt threatened by the women who were “belligerent”.
There’s the skepticism. I’m not the only one who thinks a guy who calls himself a porn addict in his Twitter profile might not be the most reliable witness to how “belligerent” a group of women in a pub were.
Now Greene King, the chain which runs the pub – and 19 other premises in Edinburgh – has launched an internal investigation and police enquiries are also continuing.
According to one of the women involved, two tables of eight had been booked in the pub for a get-together of friends who are also part of a new women’s rights campaign.
A women’s rights campaign!! How could such a thing be permitted in a respectable pub??!
One woman is understood to have been wearing a t-shirt with the slogan #womenwon’twheesht, while it is has been reported on social media that campaign leaflets against the Scottish Government’s plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act, were placed in the pub’s toilets.
One of the women in the group gave an account of what happened:
“We all turned up at the pub at the same time, we were directed to two adjacent areas and we settled in for a drink, food and a catch up. At about 9pm, we were joined by another small group.
“We were told at about 10pm that we had 20 minutes to finish as our booking had come to an end. I spoke to the person who came to the table to query that as we had no finish time on our booking.
“By this time we’d all bought several drinks and had eaten and were not planning to leave. At about 10.15pm the staff member repeated the request and walked off. Since I was sceptical about it I went to the bar to try and understand what was going on.
“Another member of staff, who identified herself as the most senior member in the absence of the manager, told me that we had been asked to move as our booking had finished.
“I explained the booking email had no expiry time on it and asked why should we be made to move.
“She then told me that we needed to move and we should take the hateful stickers we had put in the bathroom with us. She slapped a sticker with the words “Adult Human female” on the bar in front of me.
“I told her I had not been hateful and I had not put a sticker anywhere. She walked off so I shouted across to her because she had been rude, and accused me and my friends of being hateful and it was quite clear that a reason was being manufactured to get us to move and leave because they did not approve of our beliefs – that sex is real and can’t be changed.”
She said another member of staff then called the police who arrived around 10.35pm and she went outside to speak to them.
“I was told that the bar staff had a right to ask us to leave, even if there was no good reason,” she said.
I wonder. What if they’re all people of Pakistani origin? Does the staff have a right to ask them to leave even if there is no good reason?
I don’t know what the answer is, in terms of legal right. The laws differ depending on where you are.
“The officers spoke to several people, and one told me that everything we had told them would be in their report to the licensing board.
“I’m pretty shocked that I had been asked to leave a pub for the first time in my life, for just having thoughts that I kept to myself. What the bar staff clearly found distasteful was the presence of women they didn’t approve of.”
So it could be that the bar has the legal right to do that but that the licensing board is another matter altogether.
