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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

> That's lawsuit city

Aren't private businesses in the US allowed to deny access to their premises for any reasons? Seems like a weird thing to get sued over, I think in most places if you own the local, you get to decide who goes there, unless it's a place for government or similar.

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You may deny entry based on your own criteria provided you are not discriminating on race, color, religion, national origin, disability status, veteran status, age (more wiggle room here) or other state-specific traits (sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, etc.).

I don't think there's any place in America that would be illegal to bar entry based on the presence of tattoos.

But no shoes, no shirt, no service is quite common.

Sure, but you can instantly go put on some shoes and a shirt if necessary.

So it would be legal to bar non-US residents then? "Residency" seems different from all the criteria's you listed.

Residency inherently includes national origin, since if your national origin is the US you're automatically a resident.

Yeah, but the opposite isn't true, my national origin can be Swedish but I can reside in Spain, so banning by residency isn't banning by national origin, seems like a way to ban foreigners (non-residents).

Edit: Actually wait

> since if your national origin is the US you're automatically a resident

This isn't true is it? If you're born in the US but you live (100% of the time) elsewhere, you're no longer a resident, are you?

Ok, but you're a citizen, which is a higher status than a "permanent resident."

Actually, you fully can discriminate for or against local or state residency. I think national residence would be harder, though to be fair you're absolutely able to not hire non-residents.

Frankly the biggest barrier might be that as actual residents would get mad if you asked for proof, and if you didn't test everyone it would likely be an open-and-shut racial (or maybe national origin if you tested on the basis of accent) case.

> Ok, but you're a citizen, which is a higher status than a "permanent resident."

That sounds like a immigration/social hierarchy/importance rather than something that matters in discrimination contexts, what exactly you mean with "higher status"?

If a bar bans non-US residents, if a US-citizen+Spanish-residency tries to enter, then it shouldn't matter if they're US citizens or not, because the criteria is residency, not citizenship. Or is there like a priority/order for OK/not OK discrimination criteria?

Now that I think about it a better quibble is that you probably can't get around anti-discrimination laws by posting a sign that says "No Canadians or Americans that have spent too long in Canada."

As I understand it, it'd be illegal even with just "No Canadians" because that's a "national origin" right? Instead you'd post "No Canadian Residents" and you'd be in the clear :)

But no Canadian residents is equivalent to what I put above, and the actual impact of the discrimination is the problem, not the wording.

> But no Canadian residents is equivalent to what I put above

No? "No Canadians" is ambiguous enough that it could mean citizenship, residency, country you were born in, country you identify most with and so on.

"Canadian Residents" isn't ambiguous (you either have residency or not), and also doesn't seem to be protected at all, only national origin is.

Sometimes I believe one can also face legal trouble for unreasonably banning things strongly correlated with a protected characteristic.

I can’t sidestep gender discrimination law by refusing to hire people with long hair, unless the job is something like “wig model” or “Jeff bezos impersonator” where being bald is a bona fide occupational qualification.

> deny access to their premises for any reasons

Definitely not. This kind of discrimination is explicitly prohibited by federal civil rights law (Civil Rights Act 1964). It protects people regardless of their national origin (in addition to their skin color).

"National origin" is what country you are born in right? So banning non-US residents would be OK it seems?

You can deny entry on a non-discriminatory basis. E.g., a bar can kick out an individual Black American for being a nuisance or otherwise troublesome, they can't kick out a black guy for wearing blue (unless it's a blanket ban and reasonable, such as it being a theme bar) or being black.

This is why the signs are always phrased as "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone/any person".

As with most things though, this is just the minimum federal regulation and states will handle how far they take it differently. There are jurisdictions that wouldn't touch a "no tattoos" policy with a ten-foot pole at the risk of a lawsuit. While there are others that are more lax.

Yes! I was a bouncer for a while here in Philadelphia, and our bar/dancefloor had a rule on St. Patricks day: If you're wearing any green, you can't come in.

Worked great, never had any problems on St. Patricks day.

"You can go to any other bar in the city, just not this one."

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