Yikes! These customers share the ridiculous reasons why they were banned from an establishment. From hotels and casinos to restaurants and arcades, these places had no issue with kicking customers to the curb. Did these customers deserve to be banned, or did these establishments treat them fairly? Well, one thing is for certain. Do not act like these customers on your next outing! Content has been edited for clarity.
“It Was Incredibly Condescending And Snobbish”
“When I was twenty-one years old, I went to a training course out of town. Because it was a long journey, the entire group just booked hotel rooms for the night instead of driving back home. I booked a single room for myself and was placed at the opposite end of the hotel from the rest of my group who were all sharing rooms with other classmates.
The only times I left my room after arriving at the hotel were to get some dinner, and then go watch a football match on the television in the lobby. I sat with other lecturers who accompanied us, and I spent the time chatting with them. Around eleven in the evening, I headed to my room to go to bed.
As I walked up to my room, I passed my group who were heading out to a nearby nightclub. I had a quick chat with them outside before they took my number as an emergency contact for themselves.
The next morning arrived, and I walked down to the lobby around seven. I grabbed a cup of tea and some breakfast, and then I went to ask for something at the receptionist’s desk.
While I was waiting at the desk, I overheard a group of elderly people in front of me complaining at the desk about the noise the night prior. My group had come back from the nightclub absolutely trashed and brought a lot of people back with them. The hotel manager had every room inspected before we left, and the property was going to charge them for any damages done. From what I gathered, the manager was acting like some of the rooms were destroyed. I didn’t think my group was capable of such a thing.
I went outside knowing my room was totally fine. I even stripped down the bed before I left to save housekeeping the bother, but nope.
The hotel called me back inside and explained, ‘You are being charged an extra three hundred bucks for the damages in your room.’
I went up to my room followed by the manager, a receptionist, and housekeeping and they showed me the ‘damaged’ room.
The manager said, ‘This is a disgrace! You and all of your classmates are banned! If you refuse to pay for the damages, the police will be called.’
It was incredibly condescending and snobbish.
The manager quit talking quickly when I asked him, ‘Should we compare the timestamped images I took upon entering the room for the first time to the current damaging you are charging me for?’
I took my phone out, opened it, and flashed the manager the pictures. He didn’t even glimpse at them. All of the ‘damage’ in the room had already been there when I arrived the previous day. Besides, it was nothing any resident handyman couldn’t fix in minutes.
The hotel manager was looking to make a profit on a Tuesday night and looking to con a group of young students.
I informed the lecturers about the situation and asked them, ‘Should we call the police since they tried to scam us?’
However, we were late for day two of the course so we all simply left. Nobody paid for their rooms. I filed a complaint after we left.
To be fair, the hotel was lovely. I tried to go back a few years later with my partner as a surprise getaway present for her, but wouldn’t you know it, I was actually banned from the hotel. I thought they were just kidding. I didn’t understand it, because, in reality, the hotel staff was the people who were scamming thieves.”
“She Had A Meltdown When Anything Triggered Her”
“I was banned from a restaurant one of my good friends owned. I played music in the restaurant at a steep discount because he was my friend. I donated to the restaurant’s fundraisers. I bought the restaurant a lot of vintage glassware to use for free, promoted their events, and even supported the other musicians who played.
Why was I banned, then?
Well, the owner’s wife couldn’t stand how he and I dated briefly thirty-five years ago. She would have a meltdown whenever anything triggered her about it, and she attempted to make his life miserable afterward. I truly had no idea how ridiculous her behavior was. I didn’t do anything to her!
Apparently, the owner and his wife were dating thirty years ago, and they broke up because he broke a date with her to be the witness at my city hall wedding. They didn’t get back together until fifteen years later.
I found out about how insane his wife was when I made a social media post about my wedding anniversary. The restaurant owner messaged me and asked if I could remove my post.
He explained, ‘I know it sounds crazy, but my wife is still hung up about it. Could you please take the post down?’
I understood and complied with his request. I thought everything was fine afterward.
Then, I was invited to the restaurant for a private party by the owner six months later. He and his wife both started acting horribly toward me. I was extremely confused.
I asked the owner, ‘What is your problem?’
He replied, ‘I don’t like the way we left things last December.’
‘We?’ I confusedly questioned.
I went back and checked our messages. Right after he sent me his explanation of why I needed to remove my post, someone blocked me on his account. So, he never saw that I deleted the post and thought I wasn’t cooperating. He thought I blew him off.
I sent the owner emails, texts, and a certified letter with screenshots showing what happened, but he was still made.
It was really sad because I loved my friend, and the restaurant, and I enjoyed playing music there. The restaurant was previously a hub for my social group, but I couldn’t step foot in there anymore.”
The Casino Conundrum
“My friend and I were ‘banned for life’ from a casino in Las Vegas twenty-something years ago.
At the time, we both had gone for his twenty-first birthday, which happened one week prior. Despite being of legal age, my friend looked like he was approximately twelve years old.
After being carded by a waitress for the seven hundredth time, she recommended he go to the security desk, show his identification card, and get a stamp on his hand showing he was twenty-one years old. This way, he wouldn’t have to continue pulling out his license. It sounded like a great idea, so my friend and I made our way over to the security desk.
When we arrived at the security desk, they stamped my hand in under two seconds. However, they began examining my friend’s identification card extremely closely. They pulled out the guidebook for all of the state’s driver’s licenses and called over their supervisor.
Finally, one of the security guards explained, ‘Sorry, this ID is fake. It says under twenty-one on it.’
My friend at first calmly said, ‘No, I just turned twenty-one about a week ago. I was underage when I got this license, which is why it says it.’
He lived in one state and was going to college in another, and he hadn’t gone home to renew his license yet. It wasn’t expired yet though, so it was valid.
The security guard replied, ‘This is a private establishment, and we aren’t comfortable with you being here. We need you to leave. Now.’
Now, I knew my friend had a bad temper. He had a few drinks at this point, which only added to the issue.
I tried to diffuse the situation by saying, ‘Hey, this place is stupid. There are hundreds of casinos in Vegas. Let’s just go somewhere else.’
He agreed, and we headed for the door.
As I was about ten feet away from the exit, I heard, ‘Whatever, I’m giving the security guard a piece of my mind.’
Five minutes later, we were taken to a room off of the floor, had our pictures taken, and were told we were banned for life. If we ever returned, we would be charged with trespassing.
I haven’t been back to Vegas since then, but if I did go back, I would like to walk into the casino to test their facial recognition system.”
“I Couldn’t Believe They Wouldn’t Own Up To Their Mistake”
“I previously had to complete a history project on Poland. It was well-known around campus how the history teacher gave extra credit for bringing in food from a different country. I thought bringing in food would be a good opportunity to give my grade a well-needed boost.
A friend from my previous school brought me to a bakery that made Kolacz, a Polish dish, and his family loved it. I ordered one for my class, paid a deposit, and specified the day I was due to present my project. The bakery was located nearby my campus in Boston. I was excited for my teacher, classmates, and me to try the dish for the first time.
I ran in before school to pick up my order, and the woman behind the counter explained, ‘Whoever took your order never sent it. There isn’t a Kolacz in the store.’
Despite presenting my invoice and pointing out the day the bakery agreed to have it, the woman behind the counter refused to refund my deposit.
The woman said, ‘I don’t understand why we should refund you. We can just make one for you tomorrow.’
I tried explaining, ‘Well, I don’t need it tomorrow. I needed it today for a school project.’
The woman simply rolled her eyes in response.
I knew there was no point in trying to reason with the woman, so I called my card company and tried to dispute the charge. My chance of receiving any extra credit from my teacher went down the drain.
A few days later, my friend called me and asked, ‘Why are we both banned from the bakery?’
I didn’t know what to tell him. I couldn’t believe the bakery wouldn’t own up to their mistake.”
The Ski Ball Scheme
“When I was a kid, my best friend at the time told me if I went behind the ski ball machine at Chuck E. Cheese, there would be a large opening underneath. The opening would allow me to crawl to the backside of the ticket delivery area. And, if you made it there without being noticed, there would be a little button you could push to print tickets. It seemed like easy money.
So, the next time I was at Chuck E. Cheese, I put my younger sister on lookout duty while I tried it out. It was a tight squeeze because they put the ski ball machine so close to the wall, but I managed to make it behind. Lo and behold, there was a large opening underneath the machine.
I continued to crawl forward, and I used the silver light shining through the bottom of the front of the machine as my guide. And there it was, the magic button. I reached out, pushed the button, and I could hear my sister start giggling. It was actually working!
I had the button for what felt like an eternity, continually nervous, knowing I could be caught at any moment. I finally decided it was enough tickets for this run, scooped up as much money as I could, and shimmied back out. My sister and I split the money and the tickets, and we ran this scheme a couple more times before sadly getting caught.
I hadn’t gone back to a Chuck E. Cheese since.”
The Rotten Restaurant Experience
“One time, I was banned from a restaurant for burping. I could hardly believe it.
My small group of friends and I in the restaurant weren’t being disruptive or disrespectful, and my burp was not some intentional, obnoxious display of behavior. It was actually relatively discrete, and I didn’t think it unsettled other patrons. It was the result of drinking a carbonated beverage, and nothing more.
When a server heard the burp, my entire friend group and I were thrown out of the restaurant. I initially thought it was a bad joke, but it wasn’t. I was full-on banned from the restaurant. The server had a disgusted look on their face when they kicked my friends and me out. It was as if they had never heard a burp before.
As I mentioned, it wasn’t some over-the-top ‘eruption’ of a burp, it was the same kind you would let loose in front of your mother, followed by an ‘excuse me.’ I wasn’t going to apologize for having a normal bodily function.
I thought the server was being a neurotic, over-assertive person, and my own time working as a server throughout the years has only reinforced the impression. I wouldn’t want to go back to the restaurant if the staff was so stuck up and snobby, anyway.”
“I Couldn’t Believe How Petty She Acted”
“One time, I went to a local franchise pizza place that was advertising they were hiring drivers, and no prior job experience was necessary. At the time, I was eighteen years old. I didn’t have any job experience I could put on a resume up to this point.
I drove over to the pizza place which was all of the way across town, so right there was a quarter of my weekly allotment of gas gone. When I walked in, I noticed the lobby was packed. I waited to talk to the owner for thirty minutes, then finally, it was my turn.
The first question the owner asked was, ‘So, how much experience do you have using commercial pizza ovens?’
I replied, ‘I am just applying for a driver position, which specifically states there is no experience required for the job.’
The owner laughed and replied, ‘We just say you don’t need experience in the advertisements so people show up to the interviews. But actually, we require you to spin pizzas and insert them in and out of the ovens with a paddle.’
Irritated, I responded, ‘You just wasted an hour and a half of my life, and most of my gas because you are too stupid to advertise the driver position correctly.’
The owner simply smirked at me, so I walked out into the lobby with all of the people and loudly announced, ‘If you have never worked with a pizza paddle, they won’t even consider you for a job. The owner informed me herself. So if you don’t have this experience, then you might as well leave. To the rest of you, do you want to work for a company and owner whose first interaction with them was deliberately lying to you?’
The owner called the police, and I and the people in the lobby left before they arrived. Years later, I tried to order a pie from the restaurant. As soon as I walked into the restaurant, the manager recognized me and told me if I didn’t leave, she would press charges for trespassing.
I couldn’t believe she acted so petty all of these years later.”
The Season Pass Scare
“I got banned from Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey several times in the early nineties.
These incidents occurred back when I was in high school. At the time, season passes to the amusement park were ridiculously cheap. The passes were only like forty bucks or something, making it a no-brainer to buy a pass if you planned on going at least twice. My friend and I went probably five to seven days each week since we lived nearby.
Since my friend and I went to this particular Six Flags so often, we eventually grew too comfortable with taking shortcuts through employee areas, trying to climb things we shouldn’t, bothering other guests, and overall being a bunch of New Jersey teenagers, otherwise known as being terrible.
The thing was, the only form of identification we had on us were our season passes, to which we always assigned fake names for no preplanned reason. We eventually got in so much trouble they would take our passes and tell us we were banned for life.
Well, another forty bucks at the front gate, and boom. We were back inside the park. At the time, Six Flags needed to figure out the issues with their identification system.”
Annoying Arcade Attendant
“I was once banned from an arcade for an insane reason. I was banned for picking up coins off of the floor.
This incident happened when I was a very young kid. I noticed how people would drop coins, and they wouldn’t bother to pick them back up, or they didn’t realize they had dropped them. So, naturally, I would pick up the coins from around the machines. I wasn’t doing something dangerous or suspicious, I was just using the coins to play games. There wasn’t any harm in picking up old coins on the floor covered in dust webs and dirt.
The arcade attendant argued, ‘These coins on the floor are not yours. They belong to the arcade, and you are stealing them.’
I could kind of understand the attendant’s point of view, the arcade was on private property after all. However, I was only seven years old at the time. I spent plenty of my own money in the arcade, and I spent the coins on the floor right back into their game machines. It wasn’t like the arcade lost money.
It was a petty thing to do, to complain and ban me. All the attendant had to do was tell me to stop picking up the quarters, and I wouldn’t have done it anymore. I have no interest in visiting the arcade anymore. ”
Sandwich Shop Struggles
“A couple of years ago, I got mistaken for somebody else while I was on vacation.
When I was on vacation, I popped into a local shop to grab a sandwich and drink.
Suddenly, a staff member forcefully marched over to me and yelled, ‘You are not allowed in here anymore! I have told you before!’ as she grabbed my sandwich and bottle of water from me and put them back.
I, of course, tried to protest and explained, ‘I have never been here before. I am a visitor, and I’m not from this area.’
However, the staff member refused to listen. She gestured for a security guard to come over and walk me out of the restaurant. As I walked out, the staff member watched with her arms folded and a smug look on her face.
She shouted, ‘If she doesn’t go, I’m going to call the police!’
Thankfully, the security guard was a little more understanding about the situation. He happily looked at my license, which proved I lived in a different area.
After the security guard looked at my license, he replied, ‘It still might be best if you didn’t come in here again.’
To this day, I have wondered what my look-alike did to be so harshly banned from the sandwich shop. It must have been pretty serious because the staff member was pretty angry and looked terrified.”
The Daunting Dentist
“When I was eight years old, I got banned from the pediatric dentist. I begged the dentist to stop working on my teeth and let me go, but he didn’t. So naturally, I bit him.
The dentist used to put blue gel caps on my teeth, and it was terrible. They would stuff this huge latex funnel in my mouth for thirty minutes, and I would have to keep my mouth impossibly wide. I couldn’t swallow or breathe much and I had a post-nasal drip, so it legitimately felt like I was drowning.
I continued to cry and tell the dentist I wasn’t comfortable, and I even turned my face down into the chair to try and protect myself. However, the dentist had three hygienists holding me down trying to quiet me. I begged him to stop, and my mom sat in the corner of the room looking uncomfortable. I could tell she wanted to say something but was too intimated, as this man had been to dental school.
The dentist tried to force my mouth back open, and the only thing I had left to do to defend myself was to bite him. So I did.
The first time, I just nipped him. The dentist didn’t get the message, so I bit him even harder the next time.
As the dentist screamed, I ran out of the room.
My mom hustled after me as the dentist yelled, ‘Do not step foot in here ever again!’
Kudos to my mom who was able to calm me down afterward. She even bought me a treat even though I did not do well at the dentist’s office.
My next dentist was so much less pushy and kinder than my old dentist. I hope the dentist learned to never mess with the wrong kid again.”
The Candy Criminal
“About twenty-five years ago, I was banned from a local Kmart store. At the time, I was a kid who had just figured out that if you slapped the handle on the old twist-turn candy dispensers, they would give you free candy.
Yeah, the store manager called it stealing. The manager had the store security guard take my photo and everything. I thought it was a bit extreme to take a picture of a kid who had only taken a handful of candy.
I did know what I did was wrong, and I think it taught me a good lesson. Still, I was just a kid, being walked into the security office for my photo was hilarious.”