A stay-at-home dad has accused JD Wetherspoon of being “woke” and hypocritical after being barred from his local pub, The Reginald Mitchell in Hanley, over a social media comment
A punter has accused JD Wetherspoon of being “woke”- after he was barred over a social media post. Martin Pitchford, 31, claims his “somewhat explicit” comment was “harmless”.
Stay-at-home dad Martin has visited The Reginald Mitchell in Hanley since he moved to the Potteries last year. He doesn’t drink but does enjoy meals at the budget boozer with his young son.
Martin, of Tunstall, told StokeonTrentLive: “I came across a Facebook post from a chap who said he’d been barred after a certain member of staff had made false accusations against him. This member of staff is someone I have had disagreements with before.
“So I commented on the post to lend my support by sharing my experiences. I can’t remember exactly what I said but it was probably something along the lines of ‘he’s a p***k’.
“A few weeks later, I headed to The Reginald Mitchell for a meal. But when I opened the door I was met and told I had been barred.
“I thought that was strange because I hadn’t been in for a while and I’d never caused any trouble. I asked why.
“They told me it was because of comments I’d made on social media.” Martin has since accused Wetherspoons of being “hypocritical”.
He explained: “My instant reaction was that it was all a bit woke. It seemed to fly in the face of freedom of speech.
“I found it pretty rich because I know that Tim Martin is a big supporter of free speech and says it should be allowed in his pubs. Tim uses free speech to get his point across all the time.
“But then I’m getting banned explicitly because of a social media comment. If they’re going to ban everyone who says something negative about the pub online, they must have a very long list of barred customers.
“I wasn’t the only one who commented on that post. How many customers do they want to get rid of?
“I’m an upstanding customer who doesn’t even drink. At the end of the day, it’s just a meaningless social media comment.
“Nobody is getting hurt, threatened or injured. I never explicitly named anyone. I don’t even know the staff member’s name!”
Now Martin is calling on Wetherspoons to review its policies. He added: “I’ve spoken to management since and they said they stand by the decision.
“Apparently it’s Wetherspoons policy. I’m not bothered about being barred particularly, I’ll just eat somewhere else.
“But what annoys me is that Tim Martin promotes freedom of speech and then his pubs want to ban people for it. It just doesn’t compute.
“I think they need to review their policies and stick by their own values.” JD Wetherspoon has stood by its decision to ban Martin.
Spokesman Eddie Gershon said: “Mr Pritchard was barred from The Reginald Mitchell after he made an extremely abusive post directed at a particular member of staff. Wetherspoon does not tolerate abusive language or behaviour towards its employees whether in the pub or online and we are not willing to reconsider his ban from the pub.”
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