heres an example of a business being ruled against for discriminating against a gay couple as well as a bar that could refuse service based on the attire a group wore, since the premise for denial of service was safety and was not arbitrary.
In cases in which the patron is not a member of a federally protected class, the question generally turns on whether the business's refusal of service was arbitrary, or whether the business had a specific interest in refusing service. For example, in a recent case, a California court decided that a motorcycle club had no discrimination claim against a sports bar that had denied members admission to the bar because they refused to remove their "colors," or patches, which signified club membership. The court held that the refusal of service was not based on the club members' unconventional dress, but was to protect a legitimate business interest in preventing fights between rival club members.
On the other hand, a California court decided that a restaurant owner could not refuse to seat a gay couple in a semi-private booth where the restaurant policy was to only seat two people of opposite sexes in such booths. There was no legitimate business reason for the refusal of service, and so the discrimination was arbitrary and unlawful.
The Right to Refuse Service: Can a Business Refuse Service to Someone Because of Appearance, Odor, or Attire? | LegalZoom
How wonderful that you brought up California and discrimination, it gives me the perfect opportunity to show you how absurd anti-discrimination laws actually are.
There is a German restaurant called the Alpine Village Inn, in Torrance California. A group of four neo-Nazis went there to eat, each wearing a lapel pin with a swastika on it. The management asked them to take off the lapel pins. They refused. The management asked them to leave. They refused. The management called the police, who arrested them.
Then, remarkably, the Southern California ACLU gets involved, and sues the restaurant for calling the police on the Nazis! This much I’ve confirmed from media accounts. According to the commenter who first alerted me to this story, “the defendants’ insurer eventually settled following unsuccessful pretrial challenges to the complaint, believing they could not prevail under California law!”I’m informed that the restaurant actually lost at trial, and the insurer refused to foot the bill for an appeal.
The lawsuit was brought under California’s Unruh Act, which provides that “all persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, or medical condition are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.” The California courts have held that the protected classes delineated by the Act are not exclusive; the Act also protects arbitrary discrimination by a business establishment based on similar characteristics to the above. Apparently, the insurer thought that “political views” was sufficiently similar to “religion” that the courts would likely rule against the insured. (This was, after all, the Rose Bird Court, which issued a series of absurdly broad and illogical rulings under the Unruh Act; in one of those opinions (Isbister) Bird personally gratuitously insulted a little old lady who donated money to a Boys’ Club as one of the “select few” who wish to be “insulated from the 20th century” because the Boys’ Club didn’t admit girls.)
The Volokh Conspiracy » Some Strange Consequences of Public Accommodations Laws
this is interesting because the case i posted talked about the bar being able to refuse service to the bikers based upon their attire as it may lead to violence. i would think the lawyer (had that case been resolved by that time) would have used that as precedent.
overall this is still an interesting argument to have, can a business owner choose not to provide service based on religious views.
i did a little more research and did not know this until now, but the Civil Rights act of 1964 has this section
Title II
Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without defining the term "private."
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicitly prohibits restaurants from refusing service to patrons on the basis of race, color, religion, or natural origin. In addition, most courts donÂ’t allow restaurants to refuse service to patrons based on extremely arbitrary conditions. For example, a person likely canÂ’t be refused service due to having aprostedic leg.
heres another interesting article as well:
You have probably seen the signs: “We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service.” Common sense would dictate that a business does not have to serve an unruly customer, or allow its employees to be abused or threatened by a patron. Likewise, many business owners have moral or religious reasons for refusing service and have increasingly exercised the right to their convictions. But does that mean by simply posting a sign that businesses have the right to discriminate against customers for any reason it sees fit? In a word, sometimes. Businesses are primarily places of public accommodation. That means they are in business to accommodate the needs of the public. They actively invite and seek the patronage of the public and therefore are subject to the same anti-discrimination laws that protect workers seeking employment or promotion. Specifically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination and guarantees all persons the right to “full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, without discrimination or segregation on the grounds of race, color, religion or national origin.”
"For example, a restaurant in California was held in violation of the Unruh Act because it refused to seat a gay couple in a booth normally reserved for intimate, opposite-sex patrons. A drug store could not refuse service to a homosexual male who wishes to purchase condoms." At the time of the Unruh Act in the 1960s, California was considered progressive, even for its era. Businesses would regularly refuse service to hippies, police officers, African-Americans, Republicans and other groups of people, simply because the business owner disliked the associated group the individual belonged to.
The Moral and Religious Debate
Despite the anti-discrimination protections in place across the country, some patrons of specific businesses are finding themselves being refused service due to the moral or religious convictions of the business owner or employee. For example, some pharmacists refuse to dispense birth control pills to unmarried women or emergency contraception (the morning after pill) to rape victims because of their religious teachings.
These pharmacists are protected under refusal clauses that allow a personÂ’s conscience, moral conflict or moral values to dictate their business practices.
Currently this refusal clause affects the medical field, such as doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics and pharmacists, and with good reason. Imagine a physician with an opposition to abortion being ordered to perform one because the customer demands it. On the other hand, the slippery slope of American legal interpretation is just one court decision away from allowing clerks in bookstores to refuse service to customers buying material they find objectionable. Likewise, if moral convictions are an acceptable reason for refusing service, what is to stop a business owner from refusing service to alcoholics, or women, or any other group of people not specified in either federal or state legislation?
The Right To Refuse Service Or Discrimination? | Lifescript.com
so i guess if the state of washington had a refusal clause, they that pharmacist could object to selling the contraception. if the state did not, then there would be no legal standing. although it does not state that the pharmacy would still have to sell the customer, the pharmacist could simply refuse their personal service and refer them to another pharmacist within the store.
