Despite the fact that it is clearly illegal under the Sexual Discrimination Act (1975) to charge men entry fees to clubs, nightclubs still perists in this.
The Equal Opportunities Commission have a briefing available (link) and state clearly:-
If a nightclub tries to attract women with free entry or free or reduced price drinks but charges men fees and higher prices for drinks then this would be a breach of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 A man successfully challenged a wine bar's practice of charging men an entry fee but allowing women in free. A county court judge made a declaration that he had been discriminated against.
This site has received e-mails over the past six months complaining about this and trawling through the web, these places have been charging men but not women:-
Thai Square Nightclub, London SW1 : Women free entry on Fridays;
Julie's Nightclub, Newcastle : Ladies free on Tuesday and Wednesday, Men £3;
The Barracuda, Ealing : Ladies free before 10.30pm on Friday and Saturday;
The only remedy men have is to either complain directly to the club management or take a civil claim against the club. The EOC, whilst having advice, do not seem to want to take this up and support anyone through the courts, as they do on many other cases.
If any readers know of any clubs that operate such a policy, please could they send details (name of club, the club night, the detail on the entry policy and the town) to [email protected]. These places will then join those above in a hall of shame.
I like your blog and I believe in what you're doing.
However, venues do this (and dating agencies/web sites also) to try and attract women and make the sex ratio more equal. Without it, there would be an excess of males and that would be no fun at all!
So it may be annoying but I think this is something that is best kept quiet about. Sometimes it is best to leave the free market to do its business and not impose rules.
Posted by: realpolitik | Wednesday, 15 August 2007 at 17:56