Pontins in trouble for filtering traveller types

[bristolbaron]

asfault said:

Ever been to Alton Towers on the Easter bank holiday weekend.
thats an eye opener and mistake me and my mate wont make again. lol

We had a trip to Longleat last year and there was a significant sized group who must’ve been competition winners! They were able to get to the front of any queue without being challenged, and as we stood waiting to pay for drinks they cleared out the entire ice cream cabinet. It was genuinely impressive, one by one helping themselves to whatever they wanted and sitting in the cafe without a care in the world. At Longleat’s prices I was tempted to put on my best Irish accent and join them.

[Southerner]

bristolbaron said:

105.4 said:

vaud said:

Nope. Filtering customers based on surname and/or accent is abhorrent.

I wonder if you’ll be of the same opinion if / when your business or livelihood is ever effected by such pleasant cultural enrichment?

Surely you can see a ban on surnames isn’t an appropriate measure to prevent particular families they don’t want on site? Some of the names being particularly generic: Boyle, Carr, McGuiness, Stokes, Ward… all the names of celebrities and sportspeople who would face rejection should they choose to slum it in Pontins for the weekend.

Whatever your views of travellers are, Pontins have clearly got this wrong.

Again; what measure would you use? “I don’t know / Nothing” is clearly not an avenue that Pontins’ management feel is adequate in order to protect their business, so we have one option as already used by them, what else can you propose? Perhaps shut down and go out of business?

[bristolbaron]

Southerner said:

bristolbaron said:

105.4 said:

vaud said:

Nope. Filtering customers based on surname and/or accent is abhorrent.

I wonder if you’ll be of the same opinion if / when your business or livelihood is ever effected by such pleasant cultural enrichment?

Surely you can see a ban on surnames isn’t an appropriate measure to prevent particular families they don’t want on site? Some of the names being particularly generic: Boyle, Carr, McGuiness, Stokes, Ward… all the names of celebrities and sportspeople who would face rejection should they choose to slum it in Pontins for the weekend.

Whatever your views of travellers are, Pontins have clearly got this wrong.

Again; what measure would you use? “I don’t know / Nothing” is clearly not an avenue that Pontins’ management feel is adequate in order to protect their business, so we have one option as already used by them, what else can you propose? Perhaps shut down and go out of business?

Illegally discriminating against protected groups is one way of getting shut down and going out of business!

Ban people that do cause trouble and focus on ensuring your systems will flag up known problem makers.
Using a combination of names/d.o.b/addresses/reg numbers/drivers licences if needed and someone in charge of signing off bookings there’s no reason a company on the scale of Pontins couldn’t manage this.

Football clubs manage to issue bans, why can’t holiday parks?

[Slowboathome]

bristolbaron said:

Southerner said:

bristolbaron said:

105.4 said:

vaud said:

Nope. Filtering customers based on surname and/or accent is abhorrent.

I wonder if you’ll be of the same opinion if / when your business or livelihood is ever effected by such pleasant cultural enrichment?

Surely you can see a ban on surnames isn’t an appropriate measure to prevent particular families they don’t want on site? Some of the names being particularly generic: Boyle, Carr, McGuiness, Stokes, Ward… all the names of celebrities and sportspeople who would face rejection should they choose to slum it in Pontins for the weekend.

Whatever your views of travellers are, Pontins have clearly got this wrong.

Again; what measure would you use? “I don’t know / Nothing” is clearly not an avenue that Pontins’ management feel is adequate in order to protect their business, so we have one option as already used by them, what else can you propose? Perhaps shut down and go out of business?

Illegally discriminating against protected groups is one way of getting shut down and going out of business!

Ban people that do cause trouble and focus on ensuring your systems will flag up known problem makers.
Using a combination of names/d.o.b/addresses/reg numbers/drivers licences if needed and someone in charge of signing off bookings there’s no reason a company on the scale of Pontins couldn’t manage this.

Football clubs manage to issue bans, why can’t holiday parks?

No reason why this wouldn't work. Travellers are famously meticulous about admin and keeping all their records up to date and accurate.

[Southerner]

Slowboathome said:

No reason why this wouldn't work. Travellers are famously meticulous about admin and keeping all their records up to date and accurate.

And if that fails I suppose they could always just politely ask them would they mind awfully packing up and going home as they’re upsetting the other guests.

[donkmeister]

For those taking the "bless them, who would pick on a group of people notorious for smashing the place up, committing thefts and assaults?!" view... Out of interest how do you feel when tourist destinations overseas say "groups of British men can sod off, they're not welcome because they keep getting drunk and smashing up the place when their football team loses"?

My own view, as a British man, is "bloody hooligans, sullying our good name, can't blame the destination for that.". Our government stops certain people travelling overseas for football matches.

I would bet actual money that there's Travellers getting pissed off with the "few bad apples" they usually talk about when interviewed so why don't they do something about it? It's a very patriarchal culture after all. If they can't do anything about that supposedly tiny number of bad apples and the Police aren't going to send hundreds of officers to watch for bad apples at Pontins 24/7 then it falls to the potential victims to remove themselves from the equation.

[gareth_r]

pork911 said:

What's that got to do with calling gypsies vile bds and utter scum?

Irish Travellers are not "gypsies".

[Greendubber]

Would all the camp sites that refuse same sex groups need to readdress their policy after this?

I can remember loads of times when camp sites have refused me and my mates accomodation when we've been on weekends away mountain biking.

[asfault]

BikeBikeBIke said:

asfault said:

Ever been to Alton Towers on the Easter bank holiday weekend.
thats an eye opener and mistake me and my mate wont make again. lol

Just googled, that's a bit of a shock. 2 days a year.

They hire extra security, close the bars.

The trip advisor reviews say it all.

I had no idea.

Neither did I until me and my friend thought great idea and as we drove in i was surprised by seeing so many police and then more police and then more. My friend a bit nieve to such things thought nothing of it.
In the park and the queue I clicked.
my friend commented "god English girls are really slutty and young looking" lol. I told him it was day as had googled it and realised in the car park.
They all skipped every single queue but there wasnt actually that much of a queue as it was all kids. A few poor families with geniune nice kids were caught out. For us two 30 year olds it was ok. But still would never go back again on those dates.

[pork911]

gareth_r said:

pork911 said:

What's that got to do with calling gypsies vile bds and utter scum?

Irish Travellers are not "gypsies".

What's that got to do with posters here calling gypsies vile bds and utter scum?

[pork911]

asfault said:

Neither did I until me and my friend thought great idea and as we drove in i was surprised by seeing so many police and then more police and then more. My friend a bit nieve to such things thought nothing of it.
In the park and the queue I clicked.
my friend commented "god English girls are really slutty and young looking" lol. I told him it was day as had googled it and realised in the car park.
They all skipped every single queue but there wasnt actually that much of a queue as it was all kids. A few poor families with geniune nice kids were caught out. For us two 30 year olds it was ok. But still would never go back again on those dates.

Did using help make your point?

[gareth_r]

pork911 said:

gareth_r said:

pork911 said:

What's that got to do with calling gypsies vile bds and utter scum?

Irish Travellers are not "gypsies".

What's that got to do with posters here calling gypsies vile bds and utter scum?

Everything, if the posters who wrote that were confusing the Irish Travellers who are the subject of this thread with the Gypsies/Roma/Romani/Kale/etc. who are not.

[pork911]

gareth_r said:

pork911 said:

gareth_r said:

pork911 said:

What's that got to do with calling gypsies vile bds and utter scum?

Irish Travellers are not "gypsies".

What's that got to do with posters here calling gypsies vile bds and utter scum?

Everything, if the posters who wrote that were confusing the Irish Travellers who are the subject of this thread with the Gypsies/Roma/Romani/Kale/etc. who are not.

Somersaults.

[105.4]

vaud said:

Playing devils advocate, how would you feel if you had one of the surnames mentioned and couldn't get a holiday booking, purely because of your surname? Or I choose to bar you from my services because you have a Newcastle accent and I had problems with people from Newcastle?

.

Funnily enough, I know exactly how it feels, (not because I’m a traveler or Irish).

Trying to gain the services of an Accountant, a Solicitor, an Insurance company, are, for me, almost impossible tasks.

Perhaps the most blatant example has been with a letting agent who’s point-blank refused to do business with me due to my past indiscretions. A letting agent who ironically enough was more than happy to shovel my product up her nostrils at a party whilst pregnant, but now wishes to take the moral high ground of dealing with people ”like me”, even when being offered six months rent up-front.

Or applying for 438 different jobs, most of them menial, only to get knocked back when certain checks are carried out. So yeah, no devil’s advocate required.

I can’t force people or businesses to take my money or have any dealings with me. All I can do is to try and be an adult about it and find solutions to the problem, not go crying about how hard done to I am. My current situation is one of my own making.

Perhaps if certain sub-sets of society didn’t leave a constant trail of carnage behind them, they wouldn’t have such problems? My sympathy towards them is virtually nonexistent.

[M3333]

lord trumpton said:

We went for an a short weekend break at Ribble Hall Village and after setting in to the house/cabin thing a convoy of vans pulled up.

The rest of the houses on the plot we were in were filled with travellers - it was a wedding.

within an hour it was fking bedlam - kids everywhere, noise, blokes swigging booze

We had a moan, were moved to another part and not charged.

The booking chap was dreading the weekend.

A couple of years ago i was working in Nelson in Lancashire for a client and stayed in a pleasant old hotel with lovely grounds nearby. It was all going well until a wedding was held there.

The place turned to absolute bedlam. The behaviour, atmosphere, shouting, screaming, abuse at the poor staff, kids running feral damaging stuff. It was totally out of control. The men started fighting, it was nasty and very aggressive. The police turned up. When i went to reception in the morning they couldn't have been more apologetic. When i wandered out to my car a transit was burntout in the carpark!!! The worst experience i have ever had with them.

[zax]

pork911 said:

gareth_r said:

pork911 said:

gareth_r said:

pork911 said:

What's that got to do with calling gypsies vile bds and utter scum?

Irish Travellers are not "gypsies".

What's that got to do with posters here calling gypsies vile bds and utter scum?

Everything, if the posters who wrote that were confusing the Irish Travellers who are the subject of this thread with the Gypsies/Roma/Romani/Kale/etc. who are not.

Somersaults.

It's interesting that you could transplant this thread to another country (Finland for example) and see exactly the same points being made and similar experiences being described. But in this case there's no Irish connection, we would be talking about Roma/Kale. In those cases there's a ton of research and study proposing historical causes for the issues, few of which I would guess apply to Irish travelers. Would be interested to know what the story is there. I guess groups who either by historical reason or choice are living outside the "norms" of society will always have a much higher proportion of members who will take full advantage and indulge in behaviour unacceptable to that society.

During a discussion about some inventive shoplifting antics on a local forum here somebody posted "It's always the 99% that spoil it for the decent ones". Exaggeration of course, but in the experience of most people it rings true.

[InitialDave]

105.4 said:

Funnily enough, I know exactly how it feels, (not because I’m a traveler or Irish).

Trying to gain the services of an Accountant, a Solicitor, an Insurance company, are, for me, almost impossible tasks.

Perhaps the most blatant example has been with a letting agent who’s point-blank refused to do business with me due to my past indiscretions.

OK, but did you actually do it?

The issue for Pontins isn't that they're refusing to do business with people who are known to be a liability.

It's that they're trying to achieve that end by not having anything to do with people who have the same name or accent.

If there were someone who was named similarly to you, looked similar to you, or had the same accent as you, and you were refused service for things you definitely hadn't done and they definitely had, that would be the equivalent example here.

[donkmeister]

zax said:

But in this case there's no Irish connection, we would be talking about Roma/Kale.

Cruciferous scum. I'd set the slugs on them.

[Slowboathome]

donkmeister said:

zax said:

But in this case there's no Irish connection, we would be talking about Roma/Kale.

Cruciferous scum. I'd set the slugs on them.

[zax]

Slowboathome said:

donkmeister said:

zax said:

But in this case there's no Irish connection, we would be talking about Roma/Kale.

Cruciferous scum. I'd set the slugs on them.