A York pub is trying out a ‘no racegoers’ policy this week to see how it goes down with its regulars.
The Golden Ball has brought in the restriction to coincide with the Dante meeting at York Racecourse, and if it proves a success it may return for other race days.
A few racegoers went to the Cromwell Road pub on the first night of the policy yesterday (Wednesday) and were turned away.
“There were only a couple of people who were a bit miffed about it,” Golden Ball manager Hannah Hutchinson told YorkMix.
“A couple of groups of lads popped in and they were like, ‘fair enough’ and off they went.”
Hannah explained the reasoning behind the trial. “Quite often on race days, we are actually quieter throughout the whole evening because a lot of our regulars don’t come in to avoid racegoers.
“And some nights we have big groups of racegoers coming in. Then once they all move off into the centre of town, we’re actually quieter than we are on the same day another week.
“So I just thought it would be a good experiment to see what would happen if we didn’t have any racegoers in, and to put it online to gauge people’s response to it.”
She described the reaction as mixed. “A lot of the more regular regulars were really happy about it.”
But some locals who go to the races were not so sure. Hannah said the ban was not aimed at them. “There’s quite a few of our regulars that go to the races, and they know that they can still come in for a drink over the next couple of days.
“I feel like people will know that the sign is not for them – if it’s not for them.”
Community-owned, the Golden Ball is a sociable pub which welcomes newcomers, who often get into long conversations with regulars.
But the pub has had problems with some post-races drinkers in the past.
“What we don’t want is big groups of really rowdy people,” she said. “The staff get a lot of flack, especially the female staff from big groups of guys being sexist towards them.
“We get a lot of glasses stolen.
“I saved a guy from cardiac arrest once because he had been drinking all day.
“I refused to serve him, gave him water, he went into cardiac arrest out in the beer garden. We managed to keep him alive till the paramedics got here.”
The Dante race meeting finishes on Friday. After that, “I’m going to have a bit of a discussion with the regulars and the staff,” to see how they felt the racegoer ban had gone, Hannah said.
“I think the way to do it was to say, we’re not serving anyone from the races, because it gives you a better idea of everyone’s thoughts around it – rather than just saying we’re going to say no to big groups.
“It’s given us a good social experiment!”
It was vinyl night at the Golden Ball last night and she said more regulars attended than usual, which was a good sign.
Hannah added that she thought it was important that the Knavesmire continued to stage events for the people of York alongside the races themselves.
In recent years some events have been lost from the area, including the Yorkshire Balloon Fiesta. But “events for local people would go a long way to helping people to tolerate the race days more”.
[tptn_list limit=3 daily=1 hour_range=1]