The Ethics of Service Revisited

I’ve written in this space before about businesses refusing service to customers because of the owner’s beliefs – most often because the owner of the business has some bias (religious or otherwise) against a specific client. I’m on record as saying that I personally regard this practice as stupid; it violates the First Rule of Business and several aspects of civil behavior, if not (unfortunately) civil rights. The Supreme Court recently ruled that such business practices are legal, however, so that part of the discussion is now off the table (in the United States, at least). But this week there came the story of someone being asked to remove themselves from a public venue not because of their age, gender, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, or sports fan affiliations, but rather because the owner loathed that customer’s politics and the political positions of the customer’s employer. I thought it was time we revisited the issue…

First off, we need to acknowledge that neither members of the far-right political groups nor White House Press Secretaries are protected classes in the United States, nor is refusing to do business with someone because you loath their politics considered a discriminatory policy as such. Despite all of the pearl-clutching indignation rising from the Right, the restaurant owner in question did not commit any crime, Federal or state, when she asked the current Press Secretary to leave her establishment. Nor can these commentators claim any moral grounds for their complaints, since they have been loudly supporting the right of business to refuse service to customers on the basis of gender orientation. But those are the legal and moral aspects of the case; what are the ethics of the situation?

On the one hand, the owner of any business has an ethical obligation to his or her employees, vendors, community members, local taxpayers, and other stakeholders to generate revenue, and hopefully profit. Refusing a paying customer can be seen as ignoring those responsibilities, in addition to being bad business practice in an absolute sense. We could also point out that in most cases the employee does not determine their employer’s policies or politics; a Press Secretary does not make national policy, she just answers questions about it, to take the current example. It is possible that the current Press Secretary, as the daughter of one far-Right politician and a senior advisor to another, might agree with the extreme conservatism that so angered the business owner, but as a general principle we can’t assume this to be the case…

On the other hand, the owner of any business has the same ethical obligation to promote their establishment by appealing to the largest number of customers as possible. Again, I have no data to suggest that most of the patrons of this specific restaurant are particularly left-of-center in their political leanings, or even that they are more liberal than the current Administration, but as a general principle, if the majority of your clientele support any specific position, whether that is the Democratic Party or the Boston Red Sox, it makes some amount of sense to appeal to those same loyalties in running your business. I’m not saying you should throw Yankees fans out of a Red Sox bar, for example, but Yankees fans are not a protected class either, and if ejecting one makes all of your other customers cheer and order another round, you could make a case for it being good for business and supporting at least your first and second bottom lines…

Which brings me to the question: Do we, as business owners or manager, have any ethical responsibility to provide service or sell products to customers whom we despise on a personal or political level? Assuming that the practice does not involve discrimination towards people from any protected class or for anything (age, gender, race, etc.) that is beyond their control, do we have the right to refuse service to such individuals? Does our answer change if doing so would be good for business? Or if serving such individuals will drive away other customers and be bad for business? Or should we just provide services or sell products to anyone who can pay for them, and let all other considerations slide?

It’s worth thinking about…