9 ms·

I am torn actually unsure on what would be morally correct: 1. I, as an individual, am allowed to deny entry to persons I dislike from my private property. 2.

I am torn actually unsure on what would be morally correct: 1. I, as an individual, am allowed to deny entry to persons I dislike from my private property. 2. I, as an individual, am allowed to deny entry to persons affiliated with a business I dislike from my private property. 3. I, as a business owner (eg: a restaurant), am allowed to deny entry to persons I dislike (eg: a previous patron who was violent) from my business. 4. I, as a business owner (eg: a restaurant), should I not be allowed to deny entry to persons affiliated with a business I dislike (eg: the next door restaurant employee who is copying my menu) from my business?

0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago
5. Block people who are likely to have a medical emergency at your business.
worik 4y ago
> 1. I, as an individual, am allowed to deny entry to persons I dislike from my private property. If you were not letting other, strangers, in for money. (Unsure if "for money" matters) then you are not, or should not, be so allowed. If you are in trade than (in civilised jurisdictions) you cannot refuse to trade with a person because of prejudice and/or bigotry.
dehrmann 4y ago
The less dramatic version of 2 is a bouncer saying "no, you're friends with Bob, and Bob always causes trouble."
- CaptainZapp 4y ago
  Except that you're not standing in the queue to be processed by the bouncer, but you have a valid ticket, which they sold to you.
  - Zak 4y ago
    Venues should be required to refund tickets if a person is denied entry provided they weren't previously told they were banned from the venue.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      If you buy a ticket, you can't just unilaterally decide that you don't feel like going after all and get a refund. Why should the seller get to do the equivalent?
    - JackFr 4y ago
      The law firm were notified prior (2x) that employees would not be allowed entry to MSG. Having been so warned, she bought a ticket and tried to go. After having been warned and then being prevented from going in, her response is to sue them again.
      - MiddleEndian 4y ago
        If they have the tech to identify everyone individually they don't want going to their venue, then it's on them to notify everyone individually ahead of time. Otherwise, refund + expenses.
      - Zak 4y ago
        I don't think notifying her firm is good enough. She should have to be notified individually, directly, and provably for them to get out of refunding the ticket.
      - duped 4y ago
        It wasn't entry to MSG, but entry to radio city music hall which is owned by MSG. It's not clear how obvious the warning was.
toiletfuneral 4y ago
advisedwang 4y ago
Your totally ignore the key element here: a new technology is allowing denying entry at a whole new scale. Nobody really has an objection to organization blocking a single individual who is might cause trouble. But blocking an entire class of people is a) newly enabled* and b) much more harmful to society. If a venue kicked out a lawyer who was actively working on a lawsuit against the venue, nobody would bat an eye. But kicking out every person on payroll at any firm that has a lawsuit against any venue in the parent company, the scale has now transformed this into a different thing. The next step people worry about is that this same technology could be applied to more than just busniess you dislike. Why not block people who have disparaged your business on social media? Why not block people with poor credit scores or a criminal history? So you could draw a line between (3) and (4), but you should also be adding 5. I, as a business owner, should I not be allowed to invent new ways to deny entry to entire categories of people. * obviously blocking people on visual characteristics like skin color is already possible. And that is widely regarded as unacceptable!
- scintill76 4y ago
  Reminiscent of how things like license plate readers are legal, but maybe only because the legislators didn’t imagine a day when every person could be surveilled constantly, retroactively, everywhere.
- vleon42 4y ago
  Thanks, makes a lot of sense
- hnuser847 4y ago
  > Your totally ignore the key element here: a new technology is allowing denying entry at a whole new scale. Nobody really has an objection to organization blocking a single individual who is might cause trouble. But blocking an entire class of people is a) newly enabled* and b) much more harmful to society. So you're okay with the principle of denying individuals entry to a private business, but you're NOT okay with businesses enforcing this with technology? How does that make any sense?
  - 4y ago
cortesoft 4y ago
In the US, at least, there are restrictions on 3. You can’t deny entry to black people, for example, just because you don’t like black people.
- HarryHirsch 4y ago
  You can, however, deny employment to Dalits, and Oracle argues that it's Just Fine because there's no law.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    How is that not an obvious protected class? It should easily fall under the national origin qualifications.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      > It should easily fall under the national origin qualifications. How? Dalits aren't from Dalitland.
      - rootusrootus 4y ago
        Because the definition seems like it would apply. "person's birthplace, ancestry, culture or language" [0] It'll come down to a judge, but it doesn't seem like a stretch to put a caste group under that umbrella. [0] https://www.justice.gov/crt/federal-protections-against-national-origin-discrimination-1 https://www.justice.gov/crt/federal-protections-against-nati...
    - btilly 4y ago
      I would think race fits better. But we'll just have to watch cases like https://thewire.in/caste/cisco-case-caste-discrimination-silicon-valley-ambedkar-organisations https://thewire.in/caste/cisco-case-caste-discrimination-sil... to see whether the courts agree with us that caste discrimination should be illegal in America. (And if the courts disagree, time to lobby the politicians...)
KptMarchewa 4y ago
Change "dislike" to "actively works against you".
- TomK32 4y ago
  But, even if she did work on cases again the company, would attending an event have to do anything with the court disputes?
- pixl97 4y ago
  Eh, I take that as a very bad take. Lawyers work for their clients, and in the vast majority of cases are not personally invested deeply in the case (except when you do dumb crap like in the article). They request evidence via the court, they do not go gather it themselves. If further on site evidence is needed by non-standard methods a PI will show up at the location, and if they are any good will never be noticed. By banning the lawyers they are either petty, or they feel they are still involved in some kind of potentially illegal activity and need to reduce risk. Not a good look.
guerrilla 4y ago
This is less of a problem if when public places aren't private property, but we still have the second part of the problem: can one be forced to do business with someone one doesn't want to. It seems like in this case, she was already sold a ticket, so that seems to be a moot point on this particular case.
throwaway5752 4y ago
Your premise is a little off. This is not exactly private property, but a public accommodation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_accommodations_in_the_United_States_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_accommodations_in_the_U.... That is why MSG likely has to meet ADA accessibility construction standards, among other things. Different laws apply when you invite the general public into your property. The law is like code. If you say, "persons I dislike" but you mean people of color, you have Jim Crow, which is deeply immoral. On they other hand, your point #3 is clearly valid. To resolve this, 42 U.S.C. §2000a talks about protected classes (https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-ii-civil-rights-act-public-accommodations https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-ii-civil-rights-act-public...). People with good and bad intentions have been arguing ever since then about what is a public accommodation and who belongs to protected classes. In this case, even if it's legal, MSG is not being terribly smart to 1) use dystopian technology to enforce bans 2) be petty and expansive about banning people 3) do so against a now-very-angry legal expert.
throw_a_grenade 4y ago
They shouldn't have taken legal obligations to do otherwise, i.e. they shouldn't have sold the ticket and shouldn't have applied for liquor permit. "Yes, we took your cash in return for promise of delivering goods and services, but our policy forbids us from delivering" sounds more like Rule of Acquisition.
- rtkwe 4y ago
  Given she was there with a Girl Scouts troop she probably hadn't given her name to MSG and the tickets were probably bought as a large group. Also do we know if they refunded the ticket I don't remember seeing that said either way when I read it.
  - throw_a_grenade 4y ago
    Tough shit. People can resell things they own, like for example tickets, so assuming she and her daughter obtained tickets legally (directly or indirectly, I have no reason to doubt they did, though I don't know for sure), by that act she was already given explicit permission to enter the venue and remain there for the duration of event. If they don't like it, they can sell named tickets, and BTW since Girl Scouts are known for being vicious hooligans, maybe they should have instituted football-like regime up to and including stadium bans for their mothers.
reaperducer 4y ago
I, as a business owner (eg: a restaurant), am allowed to deny entry to persons I dislike (eg: a previous patron who was violent) from my business. Actually, no. At least in New York State. While you can ban someone for the "violent" offense you picked, you cannot "deny entry to persons [you] dislike." The victim in this case, being a lawyer, is taking the clever and lawyerly route with this: Davis is now upping the legal ante, challenging MSG’s license with the State Liquor Authority. "The liquor license that MSG got requires them to admit members of the public, unless there are people who would be disruptive who constitute a security threat," said Davis.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > being a lawyer That's the thing that gets me. I get the desire to retaliate against people you feel have wronged you somehow, but as an actual strategy it seems like playing games like this with lawyers invites more trouble than it's worth. If they're trying to collect evidence, they will just send in an uninvolved third party to do it, not go themselves. But by attacking them personally, now they're going to use their legal skills to give you a headache.
  - 8note 4y ago
    Which is pretty unfavourable for the world. Any other occupation isn't allowed to use their occupation to retaliate
    - reaperducer 4y ago
      Any other occupation isn't allowed to use their occupation to retaliate Sure they do. It happens all the time. Politicians do it. Food service workers. Tradesmen. One place I worked pissed of a local plumber's union, and guess what — a week later the city condemned the sewer pipe leaving the building. Once we made up with the union, the city magically changed its mind.
    - Pigalowda 4y ago
      She’s not illegally “retaliating”. MSG wants to ban her so they must forfeit the liquor license. She is pointing out the rules of a license that MSG is violating. What’s wrong with that? MSG could forfeit it and keep her banned and all is square.
crazygringo 4y ago
In terms of morality (as opposed to current law), I would argue #1 and #2 should be legally permitted, while #3 is inconsistent and #4 should not be permitted. Basically, as an individual regarding your private property you have total control to discriminate freely. That's individual freedom. You're allowed to choose your own guests. (Note that if you're renting a room though, that becomes a business, so this no longer applies.) Regarding #3, as a business owner, it's necessary to create policies to be able to ban individuals based on their relevant reasons that is set as policy, which includes past demonstrated misbehavior (e.g. violence). But not because you "dislike" them. Feelings don't matter, only relevant (non-arbitrary) policies do. Similarly for #4, again feelings don't matter. No, a business should not be able to discriminate against people who work for or own competitors. (You can ban taking photos however, since that applies to everyone.) Basically this is all predicated on a slippery-slope argument -- as soon as you allow bans for arbitrary "dislikes" rather than "relevant reasons", you're opening it up to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. That's the immoral part. People's desire for equal accomodation from a business strongly outweighs a business owner's "dislikes", especially as a business owner is often the exclusive one providing a certain good in a certain area. And so this case, I would strongly argue that banning employees of a law firm which is suing you from purchasing entertainment tickets is immoral. It's ultimately no different from a Democrat-owned business banning Republicans. It's nothing more than a "dislike".
- JackFr 4y ago
  Dislike has nothing to do with it. You’re suing my restaurant because you claim a patron of mine was over served by a bartender and subsequently killed someone while driving drunk. I do not want your lawyers or their investigators or staff coming in and chatting with my staff or poking around my business without my lawyer being there.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    Then tell your staff not to chat and not let anybody poke around. The lawyers may order food but not walk into the kitchen, just like literally every other customer. Frankly if you're running a public business then I don't care if you don't want lawyers there, the same as I don't care if you don't want people of another race there. If people are coming to eat and they're not being disruptive, then serve them, end of story. It's not your private home, it's a business open to the public.
kstrauser 4y ago
#4 could (and almost certainly would) be used for broadly awful reasons. For example, “I’m not discriminating against minorities! I just don’t want to serve anyone who’s worked in a chicken processing plant.”
xapata 4y ago
The difference is the scale of the Madison Square Gardens business. You could argue that they have a sort of monopoly power that holds them to a different standard than the typical business.
josephcsible 4y ago
IMO, your right to deny people entry to your private property should end once you take their money for tickets to enter. After all, it's not like she bought her ticket under a fake name.
- TheJoeMan 4y ago
  This is an important distinction with “deny access to business”. They already took her money, now they’re denying their end of the contract.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  What if you didn't take their money and they bought a ticket via 3rd party, as is often the case?
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Then you should have required the 3rd party to provide a list of names at the time of purchase.
HWR_14 4y ago
It should be noted that (3) is not true. You cannot deny entry to black people because you are a racist, for instance. You can deny someone who was previously violent, for the violence. Not because you dislike them. This is similar to 5. I, as a government, can lock up people who engage in behaviors I dislike (e.g. because they were violent.) 6. I, as a government, can lock up people who are affiliated with groups I dislike (e.g. political groups not in power)
HD103720b 4y ago
To me its pretty straight forward because this is how social credit systems start. This is a slippery slope. Facial recognition matched with digital currencies is a real serious problem.
himinlomax 4y ago
Another take: personal information is valuable, it belongs to the individual concerned with some fair use exceptions, making electronic files with said personal information in a way that obviously harms the individuals concerned infringes on their most personal intellectual property and is not fair use.
- rtkwe 4y ago
  Facts however are not generally protected though which is what most of this is about. That's why map makers include non-existent cities so there's something other than just facts involved in their product.
  - himinlomax 4y ago
    Depends on the jurisdiction. Facts that happen to be personal information are very much protected in the EU.
tqi 4y ago
I think if a business is the beneficiary of a number of public subsidizes and allowances, then they lose a lot of that discretion.
tootie 4y ago
Honestly I think the biggest free speech issue is their grounds for excluding her. And perhaps a violation of the 4th amendment too. Not because of cataloging her face but by abusing their authority to retaliate against people for exercising due process. What if law firms struggle to hire for fear of being blacklisted for indirectly participating in lawsuits? It will make it that much harder to seek redress in courts.
rapht 4y ago
Your private property is what it is, private. Your business place, assuming a public business, is indeed that: a place open to the public by default. In France (and, as far as I'm aware, most European countries), there is a very clear line: either your business place welcomes the general public, or it does not. Once you fall in the first category - and, as soon as you're selling something in that business place, you are in that category - then you must have very strong arguments if you refuse to let a prospective customer in or even if you refuse to sell to a particular person the products or services that it is the purpose of your business to sell. Those arguments usually boil down to either (i) some law preventing you to sell something to that prospective customer or (ii) that prospective customer actively disturbing the public order or presenting a high risk thereof (eg: they're a thief, they're drunk, they can't prove that they will be able to pay, ...). Of course there are provisions for specific settings, but which merely soften the (ii) to allow filtering on public safety grounds for places welcoming more than X simultaneous guests - including eg nightclubs and such. Anything not in falling into these exceptions is just what it is: discrimination. And actually, this seems very sound to me. The fact you own a business puts you in the public world: you may not refuse to serve someone because you don't like them.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Running a business doesn't magically turn your place of business into public property. I run a home business. Does that mean the general public are free to enter and roam around my home office? In the USA at least, you can kick out or ban anyone you want from your business for any reason, unless it is one of a very small enumerated list of disallowed reasons including race, religion and so on. If I don't want people wearing green shirts in my store I can kick/keep them out. I'd be an asshole, but I am 100% allowed to do that.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    >> there is a very clear line: either your business place welcomes the general public, or it does not. > I run a home business. Does that mean the general public are free to enter and roam around my home office? So you're in the second case. What's complicated about this?
nashashmi 4y ago
No, you should not be allowed as a business to deny entry, or deny service, or deny product to a person/entity you do not "like" or a person who is associated with someone/entity you do not "like". If you removed a person from your business because of something they did, then denying them subsequent business is an extreme measure and will most likely not hold unless there is language in laws that you can use, like violent activity, criminal behavior, etc.
cryptonector 4y ago
We don't allow public accomodations to discriminate against protected classes. We have made a decision that some kinds of discrimination is immoral, and rightly so. As it gets easier to make discriminatory decisions on objectionable basis, we may well decide that to expand this rule.

0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago

5. Block people who are likely to have a medical emergency at your business.

worik 4y ago

> 1. I, as an individual, am allowed to deny entry to persons I dislike from my private property. If you were not letting other, strangers, in for money. (Unsure if "for money" matters) then you are not, or should not, be so allowed. If you are in trade than (in civilised jurisdictions) you cannot refuse to trade with a person because of prejudice and/or bigotry.

dehrmann 4y ago

The less dramatic version of 2 is a bouncer saying "no, you're friends with Bob, and Bob always causes trouble."

CaptainZapp 4y ago
Except that you're not standing in the queue to be processed by the bouncer, but you have a valid ticket, which they sold to you.
- Zak 4y ago
  Venues should be required to refund tickets if a person is denied entry provided they weren't previously told they were banned from the venue.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    If you buy a ticket, you can't just unilaterally decide that you don't feel like going after all and get a refund. Why should the seller get to do the equivalent?
  - JackFr 4y ago
    The law firm were notified prior (2x) that employees would not be allowed entry to MSG. Having been so warned, she bought a ticket and tried to go. After having been warned and then being prevented from going in, her response is to sue them again.
    - MiddleEndian 4y ago
      If they have the tech to identify everyone individually they don't want going to their venue, then it's on them to notify everyone individually ahead of time. Otherwise, refund + expenses.
    - Zak 4y ago
      I don't think notifying her firm is good enough. She should have to be notified individually, directly, and provably for them to get out of refunding the ticket.
    - duped 4y ago
      It wasn't entry to MSG, but entry to radio city music hall which is owned by MSG. It's not clear how obvious the warning was.

toiletfuneral 4y ago

advisedwang 4y ago

Your totally ignore the key element here: a new technology is allowing denying entry at a whole new scale. Nobody really has an objection to organization blocking a single individual who is might cause trouble. But blocking an entire class of people is a) newly enabled* and b) much more harmful to society. If a venue kicked out a lawyer who was actively working on a lawsuit against the venue, nobody would bat an eye. But kicking out every person on payroll at any firm that has a lawsuit against any venue in the parent company, the scale has now transformed this into a different thing. The next step people worry about is that this same technology could be applied to more than just busniess you dislike. Why not block people who have disparaged your business on social media? Why not block people with poor credit scores or a criminal history? So you could draw a line between (3) and (4), but you should also be adding 5. I, as a business owner, should I not be allowed to invent new ways to deny entry to entire categories of people. * obviously blocking people on visual characteristics like skin color is already possible. And that is widely regarded as unacceptable!

scintill76 4y ago
Reminiscent of how things like license plate readers are legal, but maybe only because the legislators didn’t imagine a day when every person could be surveilled constantly, retroactively, everywhere.
vleon42 4y ago
Thanks, makes a lot of sense
hnuser847 4y ago
> Your totally ignore the key element here: a new technology is allowing denying entry at a whole new scale. Nobody really has an objection to organization blocking a single individual who is might cause trouble. But blocking an entire class of people is a) newly enabled* and b) much more harmful to society. So you're okay with the principle of denying individuals entry to a private business, but you're NOT okay with businesses enforcing this with technology? How does that make any sense?
- 4y ago

cortesoft 4y ago

In the US, at least, there are restrictions on 3. You can’t deny entry to black people, for example, just because you don’t like black people.

HarryHirsch 4y ago
You can, however, deny employment to Dalits, and Oracle argues that it's Just Fine because there's no law.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  How is that not an obvious protected class? It should easily fall under the national origin qualifications.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > It should easily fall under the national origin qualifications. How? Dalits aren't from Dalitland.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      Because the definition seems like it would apply. "person's birthplace, ancestry, culture or language" [0] It'll come down to a judge, but it doesn't seem like a stretch to put a caste group under that umbrella. [0] https://www.justice.gov/crt/federal-protections-against-national-origin-discrimination-1 https://www.justice.gov/crt/federal-protections-against-nati...
  - btilly 4y ago
    I would think race fits better. But we'll just have to watch cases like https://thewire.in/caste/cisco-case-caste-discrimination-silicon-valley-ambedkar-organisations https://thewire.in/caste/cisco-case-caste-discrimination-sil... to see whether the courts agree with us that caste discrimination should be illegal in America. (And if the courts disagree, time to lobby the politicians...)

KptMarchewa 4y ago

Change "dislike" to "actively works against you".

TomK32 4y ago
But, even if she did work on cases again the company, would attending an event have to do anything with the court disputes?
pixl97 4y ago
Eh, I take that as a very bad take. Lawyers work for their clients, and in the vast majority of cases are not personally invested deeply in the case (except when you do dumb crap like in the article). They request evidence via the court, they do not go gather it themselves. If further on site evidence is needed by non-standard methods a PI will show up at the location, and if they are any good will never be noticed. By banning the lawyers they are either petty, or they feel they are still involved in some kind of potentially illegal activity and need to reduce risk. Not a good look.

guerrilla 4y ago

This is less of a problem if when public places aren't private property, but we still have the second part of the problem: can one be forced to do business with someone one doesn't want to. It seems like in this case, she was already sold a ticket, so that seems to be a moot point on this particular case.

throwaway5752 4y ago

Your premise is a little off. This is not exactly private property, but a public accommodation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_accommodations_in_the_United_States_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_accommodations_in_the_U.... That is why MSG likely has to meet ADA accessibility construction standards, among other things. Different laws apply when you invite the general public into your property. The law is like code. If you say, "persons I dislike" but you mean people of color, you have Jim Crow, which is deeply immoral. On they other hand, your point #3 is clearly valid. To resolve this, 42 U.S.C. §2000a talks about protected classes (https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-ii-civil-rights-act-public-accommodations https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-ii-civil-rights-act-public...). People with good and bad intentions have been arguing ever since then about what is a public accommodation and who belongs to protected classes. In this case, even if it's legal, MSG is not being terribly smart to 1) use dystopian technology to enforce bans 2) be petty and expansive about banning people 3) do so against a now-very-angry legal expert.

throw_a_grenade 4y ago

They shouldn't have taken legal obligations to do otherwise, i.e. they shouldn't have sold the ticket and shouldn't have applied for liquor permit. "Yes, we took your cash in return for promise of delivering goods and services, but our policy forbids us from delivering" sounds more like Rule of Acquisition.

rtkwe 4y ago
Given she was there with a Girl Scouts troop she probably hadn't given her name to MSG and the tickets were probably bought as a large group. Also do we know if they refunded the ticket I don't remember seeing that said either way when I read it.
- throw_a_grenade 4y ago
  Tough shit. People can resell things they own, like for example tickets, so assuming she and her daughter obtained tickets legally (directly or indirectly, I have no reason to doubt they did, though I don't know for sure), by that act she was already given explicit permission to enter the venue and remain there for the duration of event. If they don't like it, they can sell named tickets, and BTW since Girl Scouts are known for being vicious hooligans, maybe they should have instituted football-like regime up to and including stadium bans for their mothers.

reaperducer 4y ago

I, as a business owner (eg: a restaurant), am allowed to deny entry to persons I dislike (eg: a previous patron who was violent) from my business. Actually, no. At least in New York State. While you can ban someone for the "violent" offense you picked, you cannot "deny entry to persons [you] dislike." The victim in this case, being a lawyer, is taking the clever and lawyerly route with this: Davis is now upping the legal ante, challenging MSG’s license with the State Liquor Authority. "The liquor license that MSG got requires them to admit members of the public, unless there are people who would be disruptive who constitute a security threat," said Davis.

rootusrootus 4y ago
> being a lawyer That's the thing that gets me. I get the desire to retaliate against people you feel have wronged you somehow, but as an actual strategy it seems like playing games like this with lawyers invites more trouble than it's worth. If they're trying to collect evidence, they will just send in an uninvolved third party to do it, not go themselves. But by attacking them personally, now they're going to use their legal skills to give you a headache.
- 8note 4y ago
  Which is pretty unfavourable for the world. Any other occupation isn't allowed to use their occupation to retaliate
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    Any other occupation isn't allowed to use their occupation to retaliate Sure they do. It happens all the time. Politicians do it. Food service workers. Tradesmen. One place I worked pissed of a local plumber's union, and guess what — a week later the city condemned the sewer pipe leaving the building. Once we made up with the union, the city magically changed its mind.
  - Pigalowda 4y ago
    She’s not illegally “retaliating”. MSG wants to ban her so they must forfeit the liquor license. She is pointing out the rules of a license that MSG is violating. What’s wrong with that? MSG could forfeit it and keep her banned and all is square.

crazygringo 4y ago

In terms of morality (as opposed to current law), I would argue #1 and #2 should be legally permitted, while #3 is inconsistent and #4 should not be permitted. Basically, as an individual regarding your private property you have total control to discriminate freely. That's individual freedom. You're allowed to choose your own guests. (Note that if you're renting a room though, that becomes a business, so this no longer applies.) Regarding #3, as a business owner, it's necessary to create policies to be able to ban individuals based on their relevant reasons that is set as policy, which includes past demonstrated misbehavior (e.g. violence). But not because you "dislike" them. Feelings don't matter, only relevant (non-arbitrary) policies do. Similarly for #4, again feelings don't matter. No, a business should not be able to discriminate against people who work for or own competitors. (You can ban taking photos however, since that applies to everyone.) Basically this is all predicated on a slippery-slope argument -- as soon as you allow bans for arbitrary "dislikes" rather than "relevant reasons", you're opening it up to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. That's the immoral part. People's desire for equal accomodation from a business strongly outweighs a business owner's "dislikes", especially as a business owner is often the exclusive one providing a certain good in a certain area. And so this case, I would strongly argue that banning employees of a law firm which is suing you from purchasing entertainment tickets is immoral. It's ultimately no different from a Democrat-owned business banning Republicans. It's nothing more than a "dislike".

JackFr 4y ago
Dislike has nothing to do with it. You’re suing my restaurant because you claim a patron of mine was over served by a bartender and subsequently killed someone while driving drunk. I do not want your lawyers or their investigators or staff coming in and chatting with my staff or poking around my business without my lawyer being there.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  Then tell your staff not to chat and not let anybody poke around. The lawyers may order food but not walk into the kitchen, just like literally every other customer. Frankly if you're running a public business then I don't care if you don't want lawyers there, the same as I don't care if you don't want people of another race there. If people are coming to eat and they're not being disruptive, then serve them, end of story. It's not your private home, it's a business open to the public.

kstrauser 4y ago

#4 could (and almost certainly would) be used for broadly awful reasons. For example, “I’m not discriminating against minorities! I just don’t want to serve anyone who’s worked in a chicken processing plant.”

xapata 4y ago

The difference is the scale of the Madison Square Gardens business. You could argue that they have a sort of monopoly power that holds them to a different standard than the typical business.

josephcsible 4y ago

IMO, your right to deny people entry to your private property should end once you take their money for tickets to enter. After all, it's not like she bought her ticket under a fake name.

TheJoeMan 4y ago
This is an important distinction with “deny access to business”. They already took her money, now they’re denying their end of the contract.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
What if you didn't take their money and they bought a ticket via 3rd party, as is often the case?
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Then you should have required the 3rd party to provide a list of names at the time of purchase.

HWR_14 4y ago

It should be noted that (3) is not true. You cannot deny entry to black people because you are a racist, for instance. You can deny someone who was previously violent, for the violence. Not because you dislike them. This is similar to 5. I, as a government, can lock up people who engage in behaviors I dislike (e.g. because they were violent.) 6. I, as a government, can lock up people who are affiliated with groups I dislike (e.g. political groups not in power)

HD103720b 4y ago

To me its pretty straight forward because this is how social credit systems start. This is a slippery slope. Facial recognition matched with digital currencies is a real serious problem.

himinlomax 4y ago

Another take: personal information is valuable, it belongs to the individual concerned with some fair use exceptions, making electronic files with said personal information in a way that obviously harms the individuals concerned infringes on their most personal intellectual property and is not fair use.

rtkwe 4y ago
Facts however are not generally protected though which is what most of this is about. That's why map makers include non-existent cities so there's something other than just facts involved in their product.
- himinlomax 4y ago
  Depends on the jurisdiction. Facts that happen to be personal information are very much protected in the EU.

tqi 4y ago

I think if a business is the beneficiary of a number of public subsidizes and allowances, then they lose a lot of that discretion.

tootie 4y ago

Honestly I think the biggest free speech issue is their grounds for excluding her. And perhaps a violation of the 4th amendment too. Not because of cataloging her face but by abusing their authority to retaliate against people for exercising due process. What if law firms struggle to hire for fear of being blacklisted for indirectly participating in lawsuits? It will make it that much harder to seek redress in courts.

rapht 4y ago

Your private property is what it is, private. Your business place, assuming a public business, is indeed that: a place open to the public by default. In France (and, as far as I'm aware, most European countries), there is a very clear line: either your business place welcomes the general public, or it does not. Once you fall in the first category - and, as soon as you're selling something in that business place, you are in that category - then you must have very strong arguments if you refuse to let a prospective customer in or even if you refuse to sell to a particular person the products or services that it is the purpose of your business to sell. Those arguments usually boil down to either (i) some law preventing you to sell something to that prospective customer or (ii) that prospective customer actively disturbing the public order or presenting a high risk thereof (eg: they're a thief, they're drunk, they can't prove that they will be able to pay, ...). Of course there are provisions for specific settings, but which merely soften the (ii) to allow filtering on public safety grounds for places welcoming more than X simultaneous guests - including eg nightclubs and such. Anything not in falling into these exceptions is just what it is: discrimination. And actually, this seems very sound to me. The fact you own a business puts you in the public world: you may not refuse to serve someone because you don't like them.

ryandrake 4y ago
Running a business doesn't magically turn your place of business into public property. I run a home business. Does that mean the general public are free to enter and roam around my home office? In the USA at least, you can kick out or ban anyone you want from your business for any reason, unless it is one of a very small enumerated list of disallowed reasons including race, religion and so on. If I don't want people wearing green shirts in my store I can kick/keep them out. I'd be an asshole, but I am 100% allowed to do that.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  >> there is a very clear line: either your business place welcomes the general public, or it does not. > I run a home business. Does that mean the general public are free to enter and roam around my home office? So you're in the second case. What's complicated about this?

nashashmi 4y ago

No, you should not be allowed as a business to deny entry, or deny service, or deny product to a person/entity you do not "like" or a person who is associated with someone/entity you do not "like". If you removed a person from your business because of something they did, then denying them subsequent business is an extreme measure and will most likely not hold unless there is language in laws that you can use, like violent activity, criminal behavior, etc.

cryptonector 4y ago

We don't allow public accomodations to discriminate against protected classes. We have made a decision that some kinds of discrimination is immoral, and rightly so. As it gets easier to make discriminatory decisions on objectionable basis, we may well decide that to expand this rule.