Pub chain apologies to cancer sufferer for forcing her to remove hat

Dec 15 2011 by Alistair Watson, West Lothian Courier

A NATIONAL pub chain has apologised to a seriously ill cancer patient after one of their bars refused her service because she was wearing a hat.

Janine McAllister has undergone intensive treatment for cancer including six sessions of chemotherapy which has caused her to lose her hair. The Bathgate woman wears a hat to cover her head when she is out.

But when she decided to go for a drink with partner Hamish Leisk at the Barracuda Group’s Ballencrieff bar on Hopetoun Street she was told by door staff that she would have to remove the hat if she wanted to go inside.

Worse was to come inside when staff refused to serve the couple any drinks because Janine had put the hat back on.

Janine told the Courier: “I told the doormen the reasons why I had the hat on and took it off to show them I wasn’t concealing anything.

“However, they insisted I took it off if I wanted to go inside. They said it was company policy so I eventually gave in. When I got into the crowd I was a bit self conscious about it so I decided to put my hat back on.

“However, the doorman quickly came over and told me to take it off.

“Hamish explained to him again that I had cancer but he said it was the rules.

“He was trying to get served but the bouncer went behind the bar and told the staff not to serve us.

“I was completely shocked by this and couldn’t believe it.

“We decided that it wasn’t worth it and just left. I was furious at the time.

“I don’t know the reason why they have this policy but you would think there would be exceptions to the rule and they could use a bit of commonsense.”

Her partner Hamish said he was left disgusted by the pub’s treatment of Janine.

He added: “In this day and age the way they acted was an extraordinary way to behave and it was like they had set out to embarrass her in public.

“She was wearing a soft hat to hide the fact she has lost her hair so it’s not like it was a baseball cap or anything.

“Surely common-sense tells you that this is a different case and to make an exception. People need to realise that not everything in life is black and white.”

A spokesperson for the Barracuda Group, the company that owns and operates the Ballencrieff, apologised for the embarrassment suffered by Janine and said staff would be retrained on the policy.

They added: “The Ballencrieff operates a policy to ask that any customer wearing a hat removes it when entering the premises, as do all of our pubs. This is in order that management may identify customers from the CCTV, should it be necessary, which is installed for customers' protection and security.

“However, we do ask our managers to use their discretion based on individual circumstances and the Ballencrieff operates a policy whereby if a customer has a medical condition then they can leave their hat on.

“In this instance there was some confusion between team members about implementation of this policy and we will be conducting training to ensure that both the bar and door teams are aware of the policy to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

“We would like to apologise for any embarrassment caused and would like to welcome Ms McAllister back to the Ballencrieff.”