ladies night

[benzocaine]

Well, It had to happen sooner or later

All this PC stuff is going to far if you ask me....

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ ... ional-wire

Ladies' Night is over at one club, could be doomed elsewhere




By GEOFF MULVIHILL
Associated Press Writer

June 3, 2004, 6:00 PM EDT

CHERRY HILL, N.J. -- The way Christos Mourtos sees it, if someone's being discriminated against in the legal flap over his bar's ladies' night, he's the one.

On Wednesday _ the first non-holiday Wednesday in 25 years the Coastline didn't waive a cover charge for women _ business was down by half.

Following a state Division on Civil Rights ruling issued Tuesday that the women's discounts are discriminatory, other businesses are worrying about similar fallout.

The division is planning a hearing and rule-making session before the it's determined how Tuesday's ruling affects other businesses.

But there could be implications for plenty of other bars _ and in other industries as well.

Eli Ozeirey bought the Clean Touch Car Wash in Jersey City earlier this year and was thinking of giving women a discount on Tuesdays _ the slowest day of the week in his business and a day when car washes customarily offer lower prices for women.

But hearing about the Division new ruling might change his business strategy.

"If I heard of the ruling, I might think twice," Ozeirey said. "I've got enough headaches in my life."

But like other business owners and managers, Ozeirey does not see what's wrong with offering a discount to women to try to drum up business.

One state lawmaker said the ladies' night ban would hurt businesses. Assemblyman Joseph Cryan, D-Union, said Thursday that he intended to introduce legislation that would allow bars and restaurants to provide discounts on drinks and cover charges.

J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, the director of the Division on Civil Rights, compared the women-only promotions to offering free drinks for Christians while making Jews pay.

But Mourtos and others in business make other slippery-slope comparisons with senior citizens and children. "Kids eat free," said Lisa Marinaro, the promotions manager at Top Dog, another Cherry Hill club. "Is that fair to people who don't have children?"

That's a realm Vespa-Papaleo's opinion didn't touch.

Despite her questions about the ruling, Marinaro said that her club would probably weigh whether it might have to change the format of its "Martinis, Manicures and Massage" party held for women on the last Thursday of every month.

Women get in free and get free manicures and massages as "Sex and the City" plays on the club's televisions. They have to buy their drinks.

And men aren't allowed.

Marinaro said that if that policy is determined to be unlawful, the club will continue the event and simply open it to men.

She doesn't think it would change much from a practical standpoint.

"We haven't had an overwhelming majority of men wanting to come up for martinis and manicures," she Marinaro said.

Meanwhile, at the Coastline, Mourtos said he already feels financial pain from the end of Ladies' Night.

Mourtos has had a ladies' night at the Coastline nearly since he bought the neon-trimmed restaurant 26 years ago.

He said that in that time Wednesday has become one of the bar's busiest days, usually attracting 600 or more patrons. Normally, he said, 70 percent of them are men willing to pay a $5 cover charge because they know that bargain-hunting women will also be there.

Mourtos said his only complaint came from David Gillespie, a Pitman massage therapist who objected to paying the cover six years ago, then took his case to the Division on Criminal Rights.

This Wednesday _ the day after he learned of the state ruling that has gotten attention from media outlets as far flung as the BBC, "Good Morning America" and a Seattle radio station _ the crowd was around 250.

The only explanation for the drop-off, Mourtos said, was the end of Ladies' Night.

"I don't think people have realized the far-reaching effect this is going to have," Mourtos said.

One place it won't reach, though, is the Newark Bears. The minor-league baseball team has scheduled a Ladies' Night for June 29 _ following a promotion for residents of Roseland and days before a promotion for people from Lyndhurst.

Team spokeswoman Kim DeRitter said women attending Ladies' Night have to pay full price to get into the game and don't get discounts on drinks.

They will, however, get information on women's health issues such as breast cancer.


Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press

[Stryke]

does PC stand for personality challenged ?

[Valkenar]

So where should the line be drawn? Would a gentlemen's night be okay? How about a black or hispanic night? A white night? It's easy to find examples of PCism gone wrong, but it's a lot trickier to articulate an absolute heuristic for determining under what circumstances it's reasonable give preferential treatment to a particular subset of the country.

[benzocaine]

So where should the line be drawn? Would a gentlemen's night be okay? How about a black or hispanic night? A white night? It's easy to find examples of PCism gone wrong, but it's a lot trickier to articulate an absolute heuristic for determining under what circumstances it's reasonable give preferential treatment to a particular subset of the country.

I don't think you get it Justin. What the bloody heck does it hurt that bars use a promotion called ladies to draw in a crowd that isn't traditionally drawn to bars?

What's next? Take away senior citizen discounts? That's age discrimination against us younger folks, if we follow the guidlines that have been set by this case. The current stratification of our society says seniors deserve a discount (I certainly think they should be allowed to have one) but it will only take is one winey puke like the one in NJ to ruin it for all.

[Doug Erickson]

Cases like this are interesting because here we see a group (men) which is being discriminated against, but most of the group doesn't mind it or recognizes that this particular discrimination can benefit them. Only a VERY small minority of men are against having ladies' nights.

As Valkenar pointed out, it's basically impossible to invent a standard that tells us when discrimination is okay and when it's not. So maybe a good way to decide these cases is to look at the net effect of the discrimination.

In this case, the net effect seems overwhelmingly positive. Women are happy because they get in free and get cheap drinks. Men are (generally) happy because they want to meet women and this policy attracts them. The bar owners are happy because more people are in the bar. The only people made unhappy are a few disgruntled misfits like this Gillespie character.

The article benzocaine quoted mentioned that some car washes give discounts to women on Tuesdays. I think men have legitimate gripe with that, and the difference is that only women benefit as a net result, whereas with the bar example, almost everyone benefits.

So, maybe the standard for allowing discrimination should be that a large majority of the population must benefit from it. Proving those benefits in a case like this might be little dicey in court, though.

[Valkenar]

I don't think you get it Justin. What the bloody heck does it hurt that bars use a promotion called ladies to draw in a crowd that isn't traditionally drawn to bars?

Maybe I don't. But I do happen to believe that cancelling ladies' nights is silly, if that's what makes you think I don't understand. I'll readily agree that there are plenty of examples where something stupid has happened because of over-zealous application of fairness standards.

What's next? Take away senior citizen discounts? That's age discrimination against us younger folks, if we follow the guidlines that have been set by this case.

My point, which Doug aluded to is that it's hard to make a general rule. And the problem I see is that while on an individual level we all think we can judge fairly, it's a different matter entirely when the government is applying the standard. But there could very well be cases where we disagree on which kinds of favoritism are fair and which aren't. I don't have a problem with senior citizens' discounts. But what do you think about women-only or men-only health clubs?

Doug said

So, maybe the standard for allowing discrimination should be that a large majority of the population must benefit from it. Proving those benefits in a case like this might be little dicey in court, though.

Unfortunately that's not good enough. With that as a guiding principle, those in the minority are ripe for getting their rights trampled if it benefits the majority. The easy example is that it's conceivable that a return to slavery would benefit a large majority*. But that doesn't mean that it would be all right. No, ladies' night and single-gender gyms aren't slavery. But the idea of giving a benefit to one group at the expense of another is the same.

Even in the bar situation, it's not true that absolutely everbody gains from it.

*Though I think it's more likely that a return to slavery would benefit almost nobody at all. The point is that the majority can sometimes benefit from stripping rights from the minority.

[Doug Erickson]

No, ladies' night and single-gender gyms aren't slavery. But the idea of giving a benefit to one group at the expense of another is the same.

Emphasis above added by me. In this case, women are getting a benefit, but not at the expense of men. Let's assume that bar has a $5 cover every night. If they let women in free on Wednesdays while men still pay five bucks, nothing has changed for the men. Women getting in free does not come at their expense.

The selective extension of benefits to certain subsets of the population happens all the time. A parallel example to this one is Disneyworld offering substantial discounts on tickets to its theme parks to Florida residents. It's exactly the same principle: a business trying to attract customers it might not otherwise attract through targeted discounts.

But what do you think about women-only or men-only health clubs?

What I believe the courts have said about this, which seems fine to me, is that as long as another health club with similar facilities, accessible to the opposite sex, exists within a reasonable distance, then the single-sex club is safe. If it is the only club within fifty miles, so the opposite sex has no other possible club-joining options, it's not okay.

Applying this logic to the ladies' night case leads to the conclusion that the plaintiff should just go to another bar on Wednesday nights.

[ljr]

In this case, women are getting a benefit, but not at the expense of men. Let's assume that bar has a $5 cover every night. If they let women in free on Wednesdays while men still pay five bucks, nothing has changed for the men. Women getting in free does not come at their expense.

Let's say the bar had a $500 cover charge every night, but women only had to pay on Monday nights or never pay... would you still say men are not affected?

[David Talley]

Ladies nights are for men not women. Its like baiting the feild. Now men up there have to pay twice as much. ***** for them.