This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
News
Wetherspoon bans tracksuits and baseball caps
A new branch of JD Wetherspoon has banned patrons from wearing tracksuit bottoms or baseball caps at its premises in an effort to “get the environment right”.
Wetherspoon has spent £2.2 million renovating a former post office, opening the Thomas Waghorn pub in Chatham, Kent, in July.
However in an apparent bid to take the budget chain upmarket, the newly opened pub has banned tracksuit bottoms and baseball caps.
The Thomas Waghorn is the second Wetherspoon pub in the area and is named after a 19th century pioneer who created a new mail route from England to India in the 1800s.
At the vast majority of Wetherspoon’s 900 UK pubs customers are simply requested to “remain fully clothed throughout their visit, including wearing shoes”, with some pubs choosing to operate a specific dress code “at all or certain times.”
Read more
Beer news
Wetherspoon pub bans cancer sufferer
Peter Pethers, manager at the Thomas Waghorn, confirmed its ban on tracksuit bottoms and baseball caps to the Medway Messenger, after a would-be customer complained that it was “disgusting” and “stereotyped people”.
“We have implemented a dress code”, said Pethers. “No tracksuit bottoms and no baseball caps. We’re just trying to get the environment right.”
JD Wetherspoon told the drinks business that it backed Pether’s decision to implement a dress code at the pub, however the decision has split pub goers.
Reacting to the ban one social media user, as reported by The Sun, wrote: “This is pretty nuts… I actually wear worn down trackie bottoms and old t-shirts when I’m working, as do many other people, and often enjoy a pint when I finish. So to be denied at the bar for what I’m wearing, I would be pretty appalled.”
“The only time I would agree with this is if there is a certain dress code after 8pm or something – for every town that residents wear tracksuits to sit and watch Jezza there are just as many who go to work in them. So I don’t get it.”
Others praised Wetherspoon with one user commenting that they had “never seen the need for wearing any hat indoors” adding: “Plenty of other pubs in Chavham for these individuals.”
Do you agree with the ban? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
The Thomas Waghorn in Chatham, Kent, opened in July