Legal Question in Business Law in Washington

Re: Right to refuse service

I'm assuming you are the owner or manager of this club. I'm also assuming that when this woman became a member of your club, she signed a contract of some kind. Does the contract spell out the rules and the obligations of members? Does it spell out remedies if the rules are not obeyed? If so, this makes it relatively straightforward to terminate her membership, if the contract provides for that.

If the rules and policies are not clearly communicated to all members, through the contracts they sign, things get a bit more complex. It is very important that the expectations be communicated to everyone, and that the rules be enforced consistently.

If you do not have a contract with your members that spells these things out, you might want to check with an attorney about the details of this specific case, and you also might want to have that attorney draw up a clause for your contracts that covers this.

In general, you can refuse service to someone who is not abiding by the terms of the bargain (whether that means not paying, or unreasonably disturbing other patrons) but you want to be sure there is no basis to claim that service was denied for an illegal (discriminatory) reason.