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Talking to potential customers for my small business?

Can a small business owner ban a man from coming into her store? (Basically on the premise that he is creepy.)

  • I work at a bookstore. A man comes in who frightens me. He has harassed other customers and one customer, concerned for my safety, called the police when I was working alone and he, in an esp. creepy mood, was loitering, moving from corner to corner, talking to himself. Since that incident, my employer has told me she can't legally ban him - that she'd be inviting a lawsuit and "He's not rational," "I'm not a psychiatrist," & "Sometimes customers scare me too." In so many words, I need to cowboy up. This man has called me a "BITCH IN HEAT." What I’d like to know is: can a small business owner ban a person from their store (in California)? Just for being creepy (ie - for scaring their employees). I'd like to come to my boss (with whom I normally have an excellent relationship but on this issue w’ve had a disconcerting disconnect) & say "Here, look, you legally CAN tell him not to come here, so why DON’T you?" I've looked on the Internet & not had much luck. I get the impression that this is a "case law" vs. strict, black-and-white law type situation. I mean, there’ve been cases where a business owner's ban of a customer (or lack thereof) have been challenged, and the courts have interpreted that. Generally, I get the impression that the courts' decisions are in my favor - meaning, courts feel like if a person is bat sh*t and potentially violently crazy and anyway making employees/other customers feel unsafe, a business owner can tell them to leave and never return and is culpable for NOT doing so. But does ANYBODY have ANYTHING really solid - I mean, like, an officially issued opinion of the California Labor Commissioner or s.t. equally intimidating that I could come, all nonchalantly, to my boss with saying, "Maybe you were mistaken about your legal rights?" As far as her legal responsibility to provide a safe workplace for me - I would go into that as a last resort, but would much rather take the banning-crazy-guy-from-store approach, just

  • Answer:

    I use to work in security for casinos in Nevada, and various malls in different places. You can ban ANYONE at anytime for any reason at all. You don't even need a justified reason. What your boss said is pure rubbish. Again, I use to do this professionally. It's a quick and easy process. You and your company owns the store, you have the right to refuse service to anyone! When you trespass him, and he comes back, he goes to jail. It's that simple. But it sounds like your boss has the final word and that is that. =/

la grisette at Answerbag.com Visit the source

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Contrary to what has been written elsewhere in this thread, service cannot be denied under certain circumstances. There are limitations. And those who post signs saying "We reserve the right to deny service to anyone" are not necessarily on solid ground if they do. For example, the owner could not deny service where a person is a member of what is known as a "protected class" and that is the reason service is being denied. That is --just as an example-- the owner cannot deny service to, say, anyone based on his/her race. It can become even more complex where the "customer" with a behavioral problem is also a member of a protected class and claims that his/her exlusion is not based on how he/she acted in the store but because of race or ethnic origin. And in today's society, the owner would likely have to prove otherwise. In your circumstances, the shop owner may merely be avoiding a possible civil complaint/action and the need to defend her reasoning for exclusion. As the owner, that's her option, not yours.

ChuckExAnon

Absolutely. You have the right to refuse service to anyone.

Hardcore Conservative

I believe that in most places commercial companies are under no obligation to serve anybody. Certainly in the UK, if a shop wished to refuse me service, they could do so, and I would have no come-back at all.

Prunesquallor

If he is posing a threat its grounds for banning period if hes concerning employes and or customers im tossing his ass out myself.

Redrubicon1025

Thank you all for your helpful answers (and to Prunesquallor, in particular, for sharing a name with the coolest character in the best least-read book ever - apologies to Remembrance of Things Past, but the prize, I vote, goes to Gormeghast). Anyway, I am going to have to do some of my own research, I guess, into specific instances of scary-type customers being banned in the U.S. & California. I think she (the owner), w. the typically Californian p.o.v., must think that b.c. he is maybe insane and/or permanently whacked out from, I'm guessing, years of meth use, he falls into a protected category (like race/weight/cross-dressing/over-weight crossdressing), but I do not think so. It's all kind of messy and depressing and, of course, one wishes that one did not have to make life more difficult for a person who is already kind of besieged by an ugly warped sense of reality, but I more than I enjoy being superhumanly kind I enjoy being just averagely unremarkably kind and alive.

la grisette

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