Refusal of service to single customers

Question

Bob walked past a restaurant and saw 35% of their tables are empty, so they are reasonably busy, but have plenty of open tables.

He asks to be seated as a party of one, but is told in a most palpably disingenuous manner that they are fully booked, and, upon challenging this, that all of those open tables he sees are in fact "reserved."

The front of house guy shouts something back to the manager in Bengali, and the manager mutters back in English quite firmly that they have no open tables for a party of 1.

Clearly this implies that they have tables available, which they would be willing to seat a walk-in party of two at, they just don't wish to "waste" it on a party of one.

This would seem to unintentionally have the effect of sitting on those who are not married and thus single, even though the motivation is clearly profit driven. Unintended discrimination as I understand is permitted by the Equality Act 2010, insofar as it is motivated as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, however, this must not be simply increased profits if it is not combined with some type of other concern than sheer profit.

Is the restaurant's conduct lawful?

Answer 1

Is the restaurant's conduct lawful?

Yes

They can refuse to serve anyone they like (or don't like) as long as that decision is not discrimatory based on one, or more, of the relevant protected characteristics defined by section 4 Equality Act 2010, which includes:

marriage and civil partnership

Bob not being in the company of someone else does not equate to his marriage / civil partnership status. It just means he was on his own at the time.

• HOWEVER, this is a moot point as...

Part 3 of the 2010 Act, which deals with discrimination when providing "services and public functions", states at section 28 that:

(1)This Part does not apply to the protected characteristic of—

[...]

• (b)marriage and civil partnership.

Answer 2

Bob walked past a restaurant and saw 35% of their tables are empty, so they are reasonably busy, but have plenty of open tables.

He asks to be seated as a party of one, but is told in a most palpably disingenuous manner that they are fully booked, and, upon challenging this, that all of those open tables he sees are in fact "reserved."

That is correct. Bob doesn't know a damn thing about the restaurant business.

Occam's Razor says the likeliest reason is that that the restaurant has reservations for those tables, expected to arrive imminently.

By "imminently" I mean they are expected to arrive before the time Bob can be reasonably served, enjoy the meal without pressure to leave, and have the table be cleaned and reset. The restauranteur knows how long that is.

As such, the law is not going to micro-manage the restauranteur's choices there, absent some conclusive showing of discrimination of a protected category of people as defined by the government (race, religion, ethnic origin, that kind of thing).

The front of house guy shouts something back to the manager in Bengali, and the manager mutters back in English quite firmly that they have no open tables for a party of 1.

Clearly this implies that they have tables available, which they would be willing to seat a walk-in party of two at, they just don't wish to "waste" it on a party of one.

That cannot be reasonably inferred from the evidence at hand.

Answer 3

One question - does this policy of the restaurant, if it is a policy, have a disparate impact on people of a protected characteristic due to a tenuous connection that unmarried people might have a higher probably of dinning alone?

Much more important -- are single people a protected characteristic in the first place?

Apparently not --

In the Equality Act marriage and civil partnership means someone who is legally married or in a civil partnership. Marriage and civil partnership can either be between a man and a woman, or between partners of the same sex.

People do not have this characteristic if they are:

single
living with someone as a couple neither married nor civil partners
engaged to be married but not married
divorced or a person whose civil partnership has been dissolved

It is meant to avoid discrimination against those who are in "official" couples. It does not apply to discrimination against the un-married.

So the real off-the-wall discrimination question would be if tables of two were not allowed.

On the same page is says -

What is marriage and civil partnership discrimination? This is when you are treated differently at work because you are married or in a civil partnership.

I haven't found out one way or the other if the actual law is only employment related, as this implies.