ganns@hound.UUCP (R.GANNS) (11/05/85)
I guess one could cook up a case for the idea that what we have here is an issue of major social importance, sort of like the segregated Alabama lunch counter, but I don't believe it. I think that if a bar owner wants to encourage more women to come to his/her establishment by tinkering with drink prices, then that should be his/her business. One could argue that the next step is to ban theatre owners from giving cheaper tickets to kids and senior citizens. I too find the "meat market" atmosphere of a lot of bars distasteful, so I simply avoid them; if a bar owner wants to develop a particular atmosphere for his/her establishment, that's their right. I tend to be suspicious of any sort of official social engineering, though I will admit it occasionally seems necessary. My basic feeling is that official interference (whether judicial or legislative is irrelevant--net effect on individual same) should be kept to a minimum. Clearly there are situations where it is necessary, and I don't think that any general guidelines can be developed to identify them consistently--they will be matters of subjective judgement based on case-by-case details. This is one situation where I think that any possible social value of the ban does not justify the interference in the rights of the bar owners to run their businesses as they see fit. -- Rich ihnp4!hound!ganns