To feel like pub staff should not turn a blind eye to inappropriate comments?

[LaurenSw]

We have just returned from a great week away in the UK, staying by the coast and travelling to nearby areas each day.

We visited quite a few pubs, and a feature in almost all of these was local men stood by the bar making sexual/racist comments and then chuckling away.

The bar staff would usually roll their eyes and tell us they just let them get on with it.

On the last day, my DH said something to a man in one of the pubs who made a particularly vile comment. The staff who was present actually told my DH to cheer up!

Is it me or should staff do more to cut this sort of thing out?

It's not the bar staff or managers job to police it!

@LaurenSw yep sure, bar staff are going to piss their locals off in favour of a one off tourist,I don't suppose they need their jobs. I suggest you holiday somewhere different if every pub there is full of sexist, racist locals 🙄

It's you. You aren't entitled to expect people on NMW in a pub to take risks. If you want a more policed environment, pay for it. It's fine to be annoyed that a staff member told your DH to 'cheer up' but other than that, no.

I say that as someone who used to argue with this kind of thing all the time when I worked in a pub in the 00s. But then we had security.

Whilst I agree that it’s unfair to expect young people on minimum wage jobs to tackle ‘misogynistic/racist people with a penis’, I don’t see why the pub owners/landlord couldn’t deal with it?

But… if you go to places like Weatherspoons and similar dives, that’s the sort of clientele you’ll bump into. Sadly, openly racist views are more freely aired since Brexit and ordinary folk are afraid to call them out because bizarrely, they’ll be viewed as the bad guys. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Don't be daft OP. Bar staff are not paid to police political options.

Who is to sit in judgement of what's "inappropriate" anyway? You might think an opinion or joke funny, I might be offended and vise versa.

You sound like a fan of Big Brother (the novel, not the asinine TV show). Bet your thoughts and opinions are the "correct" ones aren't they 🙄

So who decides what is acceptable or not? Are the staff the verbalising police or other customers?

Very weird that this happened in every single pub you set foot in.

However, speaking from the perspective of someone who has done a lot of bar work:

• Some pub staff won't say anything because they don't themselves think it's a problem and this is the usual vibe in that pub.
• Some pub staff won't say anything because it's not their job to police conversations between customers - they might intervene if the customer says something to them or is harassing another customer directly, but don't feel it's their role to tell customers what they can and can't say to their mates.
• Some pub landlords/managers expect their staff to put up with this sort of behaviour because 'the customer is always right' according to them and these sorts of customers are probably regulars who spend a lot of money.
• Some pub staff won't say anything because they fear the likely confrontation if they do, and can't face a long debate with a man they can't actually get away from and who knows where they work.

Ultimately, the landlord/manager needs to empower the staff to deal with these situations, but often they don't because those regulars are keeping the pub afloat.

I haven't done bar work for a long time now and when I did, having to listen to vile people on occasion without being able to do much about it was the worst part of my job.

This is freedom of speech in action.
If you can't tolerate what's being said, you can either challenge it yourself, or leave the pub.
Don't expect the staff to sanction their locals (who probably keep the place going) for the sake of tourists who will be gone next week.

Unfortunately, they need these people to remain viable as a business.

They piss off you? Well, you're unlikely to be coming back anyway. They piss off the locals? Then they're going to be losing thousands upon thousands of quid.

Having worked in pubs, i would most certainly tell the bigots where to stick it, but that's just me

Gosh, nearly every pub over the course of a week, that's almost unbelievable!

Why didn't you challenge it?

But… if you go to places like Weatherspoons and similar dives, that’s the sort of clientele you’ll bump into

If you go to Wetherspoons it’s owned by someone like that.
But the clientele mostly seems to be students and young people too broke to drink anywhere else.

Pretty surprised at the replies - I agree with you OP to an extent. Though I think it does depend on the nature of the comments. I do think there are different kinds of sexist and racist comments, I think of them as soft vs hard for want of a better word. A soft one might be an (unfunny) joke about illegal immigrants. While a hard one would be a comment pointedly directed at a specific race. I wouldn’t necessarily expect people to challenge the first type but would hope someone would the second.

For women/sexism an acceptable (unfunny) joke might be something about doing the dishes, a harder and unacceptable one would be about abuse or violence.

Of course this doesn’t mean it’s their “job” or “duty” to challenge horrible and abusive comments. That’s only for the police. However I do think that people do have a moral duty to step in sometimes when comments go too far, and that goes regardless of the public setting. And of course the vast majority of businesses would be thoroughly within their rights to prohibit certain customers if they’re using abusive language on the premises.

Well they might well lose their business if there was a pub next door that was willing to put up with their language. But assuming there are, say, only three or four pubs within spitting distance of the area, what if all three pubs clamped down on the racist language? Perhaps then these men would actually have to reel their necks in a bit (and who knows, maybe even consider that most people in Britain don’t appreciate racism?)

The LL can get all "gerroutta my pub" if they so choose. Bar staff, not so much. As a pp said, they are paid to pull pints, not police language.

Yes, it's sad and the racist misogynistic gits are awful, and no doubt worse since being emboldened by Brexit. But pubs are adult spaces, and I'm not sure we'd really want to go down the route of policing language unless they were targeting another individual. I think you just need to vote with your feet.

I hope the rest of your holiday was great 😊

Of course this doesn’t mean it’s their “job” or “duty” to challenge horrible and abusive comments. That’s only for the police. However I do think that people do have a moral duty to step in sometimes when comments go too far, and that goes regardless of the public setting.

What does the distinction between 'challenging' and 'stepping in' look like in practice?

Have you worked in a pub?

I almost lost my much needed student job when I challenged a patron who leaned over the bar to unbutton my shirt so I could ‘give them what they came for’!

I did actually leave - walked out never went back - the day Nelson Mandela was released and they were doing monkey chants at the TV. This was a local pub in the posh bit of town.

I would expect management of these places to not tolerate racism or sexism on their premises. Its not just the regulars who are their customers.

From my experience they will step in if they are especially loud/ disruptive or if they are making hateful comments at a specific person, but otherwise pubs are there for people to talk and debate with each other. Sometimes it's good to let the conversations play out, someone might challenge their views in a thought provoking way. I have had some heated debates in pubs myself about vaccinations or the moon landing/ 9/11 conspiracy... sometimes the back and forth is interesting even if I think their views are crazy. | think that's often part of the fun of a pub at times, if it's just conversation and not aimed at anyone. Why didn't you challenge their conversation if you felt someone should say something?

Its not a comment I'd like, or find particularly funny. But what I would say, is that if you travelled to Dover, you left pretty soon after arriving. If you had to see your home town change beyond recognition, with the daily arrival of young men in boats being put up in what used to be pretty nice hotels, maybe you'd make the odd ill judged remarks when discussing it over a pint.

@GreenCandleWax I would expect the managers to be setting an appropriate tone too, but the question was asked of bar staff and I genuinely don't think that bar staff should be policing the comments of customers. Bar staff are often young and have received zero training to deal with difficult situations. Unless they have the support from their manager, who has already set the tone for the pub or bar as a zero tolerance venue and they have had appropriate training in identifying and dealing with such matters, I don't think they should be placing themselves in unduly difficult and stressful situations for minimum wage.

They don't probably for the same reasons you said nothing too 🙄

Are you new to pubs?

Stop earwigging and you wouldn’t have to hear hurty words!

Unless they were shouting through a megaphone, I can’t say as I’ve ever heard what other people are saying in a pub unless I was deliberately trying to listen in.

This

OP, as an ex-landlady, I'd intervene if the comments were completely out of order eg. obscene and targeted at a youngster, but that's because I had the right to ban someone if I wanted. I wouldn't intervene if the comments weren't personal or likely to cause a punchup.

It's a balancing act, and the landlord's call. The bar staff are not there to police the customers except their alcohol consumption.