Third year refused entry to Pier Pressure for being on crutches

We’ve all had disagreements with door staff and bouncers, but now Pier have refused entry to a customer just for being on crutches. 

Last month, Pier Pressure banned Chris West, a third year Zoology student, from entering the venue after an ankle injury in rugby training left him hobbling about on crutches for the night.

Door staff claimed he couldn’t come in because his crutch could be used as a weapon.

Describing his ordeal, Chris told The Tab: “Everywhere else was absolutely fine with the crutches.”

Chris just wanted to sit and listen to some cheese

He added: “The bouncer at Inn On asked if I could walk without my crutches and asked if he could take them off me. I said he could, so he let me go in without them.

“Then I got them back on the way out before I tried to get into Pier Pressure.”

But when Chris attempted to enter the club the bouncer turned him away, claiming the crutches could be used as a weapon. Chris’s offer to leave the crutches behind and hobble his way up also fell on deaf ears.

Chris told us: “Their exact response was ‘I have seen you walking up here with crutches, so I know you need them and you can’t go in’.”

Chris replied: “I don’t need them, I just prefer to walk with them to take the strain off my ankle and I’ll probably be sitting down with my friends anyway.

“They just carried on saying they saw me use them so I couldn’t go in.”

A shocked Chris sought out the manager to complain. But he received the exact same answer as the bouncer’s – only this time with “it’s just policy” tacked on to the end of her speech.

“I asked them what they did to permanently disabled people. The manager said they escort them up to one of the sofas upstairs before taking the crutches off them. I asked if they could do that to me but they said no because I wasn’t permanently disabled.”

When asked whether he felt this was an act discrimination he told us: “I definitely thought so at the time.”

“They could have easily accommodated me and allowed me into the club that night if they put in a little more effort and care. But they obviously didn’t care about the disabled if they were still making money off the other students.”