Are bouncers allowed to do this?

Re: re:

But there are no laws restricting the amount of accountants who can set up office in the country. Therefor you are not comparing like with like. Let them refuse who they like once they operate in the same competitive environment as the rest of the tradespeople in this country.

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The holder of a public licence does not reserve the right to refuse who they wish. They may only refuse those who are underage, drunk or violent, and so the "the management reserves the right to refuse admission" signs are not actually legal.

If I am a sober, non-violent 21 yr old from Ballymun, under the laws of this land, which the publican is bound to adhere to under the terms of his licence, I cannot be refused access to a public house simply because the publican believes I would be bad for business.

jem, whether you think its right or wrong, the publican has a public licence and so must adhere to these terms. Yes the publican is a businessman (and God knows they make enough money), but like all other businesspeople, publicans are bound to the laws of the land. However, it appears that they believe they can flout these laws and handpick their clientele.

I agree that publicans have to make calls of judgement to "keep an orderly house". This should be done based on peoples' actions, and not merely based on their appearance when they get to the pub (unless, of course, their demeanour indicates they are excessively drunk or violent/agreesive). The former is totally reasonable - if someone is or is threatening to cause trouble, by all means kick them out.

However, the latter is totally prejudicial based on appearance and as I mentioned before (interestingly noone has challenged this) this is elitist and if it were based on a person's skin colour there would be an outrage. To me this attempt at social apartheid (for examples just see several pubs on Dawson Street who are prime examples of pubs which try to handpick their clientele) is equally appalling.

pinchy - define appearance

A publican (like any businessman) has to decide on the market he wishes to serve.
And like it or not there are different markets and people are more comfortable socialising with their peer group, whether its a wine bar full of yuppies or a pub near the markets or docks.
Same with clubs.
The public are very, very fickle and if they determine that this pub is getting dangerous or full of rich twats or so forth, they will leave and go elsewhere.

To make sure that the mind police of AAM do not jump all over me - I must say that not all rich are twats or that all twats are rich - phew) I am only trying to differentiate for the sake of argument

So If I owned a club/pub that catered to rich twats I would want to turn away non regulars who might offend my clientele
Same if owned a "tough" pub/clun then I would like to keep out people who are not used to rough treatment or who might get picked on and start a fight or sue me.

At the end of the day , I want to keep my livlihood, keep the peace, keep my regulars and so forth.

It does not mean I am for/against anyone

also, me not owner or bouncer 0]