‘Not tonight lads’: Hotel ordered to pay €4,000 to Travellers turned away on Valentine’s weekend

A Co Kerry hotel has been ordered to pay €500 each to a group of eight Traveller friends after turning them away on a Valentine’s weekend because they couldn’t provide a credit card as security for their rooms.

Ruling on their discrimination complaints, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) found that there had been indirect discrimination against the eight complainants because as Travellers they were “at a particular disadvantage in accessing credit card facilities” and no alternatives, like a cash deposit, were considered.

It happened when the four married couples, all members of the Traveller community, arrived at the Tralee hotel from Charleville in Co Cork on February 12th, 2021 to celebrate St Valentine’s weekend.

One of the women, who had booked the four rooms using a debit card on a third-party website, said in evidence she could see her friends were already being turned away when she was arriving.

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The receptionist told her the hotel would not accept her debit card but “needed a credit card”. When she asked if she could use cash, she was “refused entry”, the woman said.

She said she did not see terms and conditions referring to a credit card when she used a third-party site to book the rooms, but accepted that the policy was in place.

However, she said she “did not know the difference between credit and debit cards” and “understood they were all the same”.

“Upon check-in, guests are required to present photo ID and a matching credit card. Failure to present both requirements will result in cancellation of your booking,” read a notice posted at reception, according to legal submissions.

Her husband, and the other six complainants, each gave accounts of being turned away in a similar manner.

A sister of the lead guest said in evidence that she had arrived in advance of the others and showed a screenshot of the booking confirmation at the hotel’s reception, only to be told “not tonight lads”.

The witness said she was “embarrassed, hurt and upset” at what had happened because there were “people around” and she had “never been stopped before”.

Lawyers acting for the hotel had told a joint hearing of the cases in March this year that any settled person not known to the hotel owner – even the complainant’s barrister – would have been turned away if they could not produce a credit card.

One of the men in the group said he and his wife didn’t get out much because it was difficult to find a babysitter and that he believed they were refused “because we were members of the Travelling community”.

Another of the men said the receptionist refused an offer of cash, but that there was “nothing about a security deposit” and that the receptionist was “on about a card”.

The hotel receptionist did not appear to give evidence at the hearing, but a bar manager who assisted her told the tribunal that the policy was there for “security purposes”, citing past instances of unpaid room service bills and damage caused to rooms.

The witness said the policy had been applied “across the board to everyone, not just members of the Traveller community” for the previous five years, and denied discrimination.

The hotel’s owner said he had “no problem” with members of the Traveller community, but that he had decided to implement the credit card policy even though it meant “turning away good business”.

The hotelier said he preferred to “err on the side of caution” to avoid being “caught financially” with damage to rooms or bills not being paid.

He said the complainants were “very genuine and honest people” and denied refusing them on discriminatory grounds, adding that the hotel has an “open-door policy”.

Mr Nicholas, for the complainants, said in a legal submission: “The test is whether a seemingly neutral provision is in fact neutral when applied to members of the Travelling community versus when it is applied to members of the settled community.”

His clients were part of “a category of persons who cannot readily access credit facilities due to a lack of income to secure same”, Mr Nicholas told the WRC.

Adjudicating officer Úna Glazier-Farmer noted that the Equal Status Act required any “apparently neutral provision” which had an impact on a protected category to be proportionate and necessary in its application and go towards a legitimate aim.

She also noted the findings of the most recent census, as submitted by the complainants, which recorded an unemployment rate of “in the region of 80 per cent” in the Traveller community.

Ms Glazier-Farmer said although there had been no direct evidence from the complainants on their own personal economic circumstances, the unemployment rate among the Traveller community led her to conclude that they were “at a particular disadvantage” when the policy was applied.

The adjudicator acknowledged that the hotel had a “real need to protect the property”, but said that because there had been too little evidence on the costs of past damage to the hotel it was “impossible” to say whether a credit card was “the only appropriate method of security”.

In all eight complaints under the Equal Status Act 2000, Ms Glazier-Farmer ruled the hotel’s credit card policy was “not objectively justified” and that the complainants were indirectly discriminated against on the basis of membership of the Traveller community.

Ms Glazier-Farmer ordered the hotel to revise its policies to allow “alternative methods of reasonable security” and awarded €500 in compensation in each case, with the orders totalling €4,000.