Issue 414 Store owner rights September 9, 2014

What rights do store owners have with respect to serving customers?  Do they have the right to reject a person for any reason?  Let's discuss.

Rights of the Store owner:  When a person goes into a store to shop, they are making a contract with the store owner to purchase the goods in their store if they find the price acceptable.  Likewise, the store owner has the right to refuse that shopper (or customer) if they violate the rules of the store.  Thus, if the store is a restaurant and they have a dress code, they may reject that customer and refuse to serve them.  They can do this if their store appeals to people with a certain dress and status.  If a person acts out in a store and becomes violent, steals, or generally makes a scene the owner can again reject that individual from ever shopping at their store ever again.  All this is basic, but what about the more controversial.

Controversial aspects of the right:  In the same way a store owner can reject people for doing bad things, a shopkeeper can reject people for other reasons.  They can deny a family entry into a restaurant because they are bringing in a crying baby.  A bake shop can reject a customer because they think that the cake they want violates their moral principles or faith (i.e. the shop owners who refuse to bake cakes for gay couples' weddings).  They can appeal only to women, and thus ban men from their store, or vice versa.  So if we accept that store owners have rights, then we must accept sexist, homophobic, religious and even racial/ethnic bans as well.  Remember, there are good aspects to rights and bad ones, but it is how we react that dictates if the store changes its policies.

Conclusion:  Sure, we may not like a bake shop refusing work because they do not want to serve a gay couple on religious or other grounds.  But we have to accept it for the store owner has rights and there are alternative places to get a cake that will not have such inhibitions.  However, we still do not have to like it.  In fact we cannot go there anymore because we do not like their policies.  While such inhibitions to serve others seem dumb, we can fight back by refusing to go back to that store, restaurant or club.  If enough people refuse to shop there, their policies may change or they will go out of business.  Or the prohibitions that do not make sense will go away such as racial, ethnic, religious, sexist and homophobic etc.  Heck even the ones that do not make sense like wearing a hat, wearing jeans or other silly dress codes, etiquette codes and such can also be overturned (though they are not as serious).  All we have to do is refuse to shop at places for while the owner has the right to refuse a sale, we have the right to refuse to buy from them.  We all have rights, but instead of suing someone, we can just refuse to contract with them instead.