Can I legally refuse entry to people with face coverings Can I refuse entry and/or service at my retail business (food service, grocery, book store, etc.) to individuals wearing face coverings? i'm specifically interested in religious coverings such as hijab/niqab/burka. If individuals ignore this policy, would it be trespass and would that mean I could call the cops to have said individuals removed?
You do not give a jurisdiction so I will assume Australia. Discrimination is legal unless it is for a prohibited reason One of the prohibited reasons is if it is on the basis of a person's religious beliefs. So, you are completely within your rights to an individual wearing a face covering provided that the wearing of such a covering is not part of that person's religious belief. So, you can say no to motorcycle helmets, baseball caps and balaclavas - you cannot say no to a hajib if it is worn as a religious observance of either Islam or Christianity, a habit if worn by a Christian nun or a kippah worn by an orthodox Jew. Providing your policy contains such exceptions you are good to go. https://www.humanrights.gov.au/employers/good-practice-good-business-factsheets/quick-guide-australian-discrimination-laws
"Public place" is not a good description of a bar. "Public accommodation" would be a better description. But it isn't a public accommodation 24-7-365(366). It's only a public accommodation during the hours it is open to the public. Presumably the owner is free to close it to the public and rent it to some private group. During the rental period, it's up to the private group to decide who to admit. (The owner would have a veto for anyone who can't be admitted, for example, because the person isn't old enough to enter a bar.) The private group is not bound by the policies that prohibit unfair discrimination by public accommodations.
There are numerous practical solutions, such as calling their supervisor, or calling the employee of yours who set up this arrangement, or providing some kind of proof that you are the ultimate boss. From a legal perspective, (1) the guards are acting as your agents which gives them some authority to exclude people but (2) you can revoke that authority. There are many things that security guards can do to keep people out, and some of them would be technically illegal (others would be blatantly illegal and we can skip that). I'll cite Washington state criminal law, and you can probably find analogs in Mexican law. First, are they on your property? If you revoke permission to be in the property, that is trespass: (9A.52.070: Criminal trespass in the first degree.) (1) A person is guilty of criminal trespass in the first degree if he or she knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building. (9A.52.080 Criminal trespass in the second degree.) (1) A person is guilty of criminal trespass in the second degree if he or she knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in or upon premises of another under circumstances not constituting criminal trespass in the first degree. How are they stopping you? If they are physically stopping you, that is assault (battery), the severity of which depends in the degree of force: (9A.36.031: Assault in the third degree) (1) A person is guilty of assault in the third degree if he or she, under circumstances not amounting to assault in the first or second degree: (d) With criminal negligence, causes bodily harm to another person by means of a weapon or other instrument or thing likely to produce bodily harm; or (f) With criminal negligence, causes bodily harm accompanied by substantial pain that extends for a period sufficient to cause considerable suffering; or (9A.36.041: Assault in the fourth degree) (1) A person is guilty of assault in the fourth degree if, under circumstances not amounting to assault in the first, second, or third degree, or custodial assault, he or she assaults another. Another possibility is 9A.40.040 Unlawful imprisonment: (1) A person is guilty of unlawful imprisonment if he or she knowingly restrains another person. They don't have to actually use force, they can simply threaten to do so, which is 9A.36.070: Coercion. (1) A person is guilty of coercion if by use of a threat he or she compels or induces a person to engage in conduct which the latter has a legal right to abstain from, or to abstain from conduct which he or she has a legal right to engage in. Though the police are supposed to enforce the law, they may decline to act if it us not clear to them that there is a violation of the law. It would not really help to prove that you own the company, because nobody really knows the relationship between the company and the building – maybe you own the company, someone else owns the building, and you've been legally evicted. So looking for a legal solution isn't the most productive use of your time. Instead, make sure you can contact the guard supervisors, company colleagues in charge of security, and carry your ID badge with you. Let us suppose that the guard company, guards, and your security chief are conspiring to rob you. The long-term and slow solution is to get a court order plus sue the pants of everybody who has done you wrong. The crux of the matter for the police would be, who owns the building (what evidence do you have that you own the building). I could actually show the police proof that I own my house. If the crooked security chief shows up with a document saying that he owns the building, you'd be stuck. But otherwise, establishing ownership of the building should cause them to stop the guards from blocking you. Unless the cops are part of the conspiracy. There's nothing you can do to absolutely protect yourself against a well-planned conspiracy (they make movies based on that).
Your description of the facts is vague enough that we can't offer an informed judgment, but to remedy this, I will paraphrase your account of the facts (you can decide whether this is what you were trying to say). I was sitting outside of the Sprint store today waiting for my step daughter to come out. While waiting, two police officers walked up to my car and asked me to turn off my vehicle and come inside. When I voluntarily went inside, the store staff said that they called the police because they had had some sort of problems with people applying for service and absconding with the phone to resell on the black market, and they thought that was part of some such criminal plan. Because of that, they refused to give her a phone or service contract. But then they also told us to never come back, threatening arrest for trespassing. I have never been in that store before. Were my rights violated? No, neither by the police nor by the manager. The police, or the store manager, can legally request you to come in for a conversation: what matters most is whether you were forced to come in against your will. By your report, you were not, so your rights were not violated. The police are irrelevant to the remainder of the question. What remains is whether your rights were violated because the manager told you to go away and never come back under pain of prosecution. The store is private property, meaning that the owner has wide latitude to grant or deny permission to enter. If they hate pink hair and your hair is pink, they can legally "ban" you. If they suspect you of involvement in a criminal activity, that can most certainly legally ban you. That does not mean that it was a righteous or justified decision on their part, or a good business choice, but it is their legal right. So, no, your rights were not violated.
You are correct that the federal law does not prohibit sex discrimination in &quot;public accommodations&quot;, the category that includes your examples. State laws tend to be more restrictive, see for example Washington's RCW 49.60.215 which declares that It shall be an unfair practice for any person ... to commit an act which ... results in any distinction ... except for conditions and limitations established by law and applicable to all persons, regardless of race, creed... sexual orientation, sex... PROVIDED, That behavior or actions constituting a risk to property or other persons can be grounds for refusal and shall not constitute an unfair practice. The definitions allow for a few exceptions as to what kind of place is so restricted, most notably a facility &quot;which is by its nature distinctly private&quot;, nor &quot;any educational facility, columbarium, crematory, mausoleum, or cemetery operated or maintained by a bona fide religious or sectarian institution&quot;. Here is a paper that summarizes the situation with women'-only clubs. For example, New Jersey law has the exception that nothing herein contained shall be construed to bar any place of public accommodation which is in its nature reasonably restricted exclusively to individuals of one sex, and which shall include but not be limited to any summer camp, day camp or resort camp, bathhouse, dressing room, swimming pool, gymnasium, comfort station, dispensary, clinic or hospital, or school or educational institution which is restricted exclusively to individuals of one sex... So it depends on the state, but most states prohibit any sex discrimination in public accommodations.
The only religious matter I'm aware of that are inadmissible are for special circumstances where one's religious beliefs may be compromised if asked in court. The classic example tends to be clergymen/women being subpeonaed for information against a defendant in court. Conversation with clergy is protected in the United States and is one of a few times cops are not allowed to listen to your one phone call or visit. The typical invocation of this would be a criminal, who confesses his sins to a Catholic priest, and may confess to a crime while receiving the Sacrament of Penance. Since Catholic Priests are bound by the &quot;Seal of Confession&quot; to not speak about the identity of the sinner or nature of the sin. The Priest can be excommunicated if he does this. However, if the religion of the witness is relevant to the case (say a discrimination case) it might be prudent to inquire into the witness's religious beliefs. Suppose a major employer has a special menu in their cafeterias for Hala and Kosher observers but does not offer a fish or non-meat option for meals on Fridays in Lent, then a Catholic's belief in this practice might be called into question.
No You say you won't disclose personal information, therefore, you can't disclose personal information. Now, if your privacy policy said &quot;We won't disclose your personal information except ...&quot; then, so long as you did the &quot;...&quot; that would be fine (subject to privacy law).
You've really got two questions here: 1) "Is it an invasion of privacy to know that I'm using an ad blocker?", and 2) "Is it discrimination to refuse service based on what software I'm running?". Taking them in order: Because of how HTTP/HTML works, there are essentially two ways for a server operator to know what software you are running. Your browser announces that it's running something. This usually takes the form of a modified User-Agent header. I'm not aware of any privacy laws that consider "Person A told me something" to be an invasion of Person A's privacy. They guess it based on the actions your browser takes. For example, if the website gets a request for a page, and the site's ad network does not get a matching request for an ad, the server deduces that the user is running an ad blocker. Since this is based on things that the server operator could reasonably be expected to be informed of, it isn't an invasion of privacy under any law I'm aware of. Is it discrimination? Yes. But not all discrimination is illegal. In general, only discrimination based on protected categories (race, sex, etc.) is prohibited, and I can't imagine a jurisdiction making "choice of browser add-ons" to be one of those categories, not least because it's something the person being discriminated against can easily change.