The Gazette 1991

april 1991

GAZETTE

Admission and Refusal Law in Hotels - The Appearance of Customers

Introduction A hotel has an obvious interest in not refusing to admit and serve a person because it is denying itself an opportunity to make money and because it might obtain a bad name in the locality as a result of the refusal. Nonetheless, it is a relatively common occurrence for hotels to refuse to admit and serve various types of persons and it seems that the higher the grade of hotel the greater the incidence of refusals. The wide variety of possible reasons for hotel refusals will be considered later.

law still exists and applies, and there is a considerable amount which may be said about it. In the remainder of this short article, it is proposed to concentrate on one aspect of the issue - the refusal by a hotel to admit a person because of his appearance. The other two broad categories of hotel refusal, relating to the facilities of the hotel or the behaviour of the guest will not be examined. Section 3(1) of the Hotel Proprietors Act 1963 sets out the legal obligations of hotels as regards admission and refusals. It states: "The proprietor of a hotel is under a duty to receive at the hotel as guests all persons who, whether or not under special contract, present themselves and require sleeping accommodation, food or drink and to provide them there- with, unless he has reasonable grounds of refusal". If a refusal made under this section is unreasonable the proprietor leaves himself open to both civil and criminal actions in the District Court. The Legality of Refusals on the Grounds of Appearance

There are, in fact, significant legal restrictions on a hotel's freedom to refuse to admit and serve customers, but quite often the hotel is not aware of what these legal restrictions are, or, if it is aware, then it often acts as though it is not. In making such refusals as it wishes, the hotel can usually rely on the customer's ignorance of the hotel's legal obligations and, correspondingly, of his own legal rights. Just how confidently the hotel can rely on the customer's ignorance of his rights is borne out by the fact that nowadays legal actions against hotels for wrongful refusal to admit and serve are almost unknown. It is extraordinary that this state of affairs should exist because customer, or consumer, rights of service in hotels are one of the oldest forms of consumer protection known to the law. In an era where there has never beena greater emphasis on the rights of consumers, it is doubly remarkable that the existence of such of a consumer right should be quite unknown. The Director of Consumer Affairs and Fair Trade - who is the state official charged with responsibility for consumer " . . . nowadays legal actions against hotels for wrongful refusal to admit and serve are almost unknown." matters - has not made any efforts to date to remedy this situation although it is clear that in S 6 (g) of the Consumer Information Act 1978 he possesses the power to do so. He could, for

instance, under this statutory provision, launch a public information and education programme to inform the public of its rights under s.3 (1) of the Hotel Proprietors Act 1963. Nor is the

by Mark McDonald, Lecturer in Law, Dublin College of Catering

Director the only statutory person who is economical wi th his statutory powers. There is another statutory body - Bord Failte - which also posses the power to inform hotel users of their rights. Section 8 of the Tourist Traffic Act 1983 empowers Bord Failte to require a hotel to display in the interior of the hotel such information as the Bord requires, and under another provision - s.44 of the Tourist Traffic Act 1939 - the Bord is empowered to supply external signs to hotels containing such information as it prescribes. Each of these powers could be used by Board Failte to oblige hotels to inform customers about theirs and the hotel's respective rights of admission and refusal. Since both the Director of Consumer Affairs and Fair Trade and Bord Failte are statutory bodies concerned with the protection of consumer's interests, albeit in different ways, it is striking that between them neither appears interested in informing the hotel customer of his rights. While there is not the awareness of the law that there should be, that

Mark McDonald

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