Pyjamas and gowns: Spar puts ‘right of admission reserved’ to bed

The concept of a “right of admission” should actually be something foreign but in South Africa, we love to call things “rights” even when they’re not; right to choice tends to be a big favourite. At best, they tend to be an amalgamation of other established and codified rights.The instance of a “right of admission” is no different.

Sure, there’s freedom of movement but you’re not going to get very far citing that right when walking into your neighbour’s bathroom while they’re taking a shower, jumping in with them and attempting to save water.

The right of admission has always ever been linked to the use and enjoyment of private property and this pseudo-esque licence given by the property owner to enter the property is what we have dubbed “right of admission” and then gone on to reserve it.

Whatever. It’s hardly been important and we’ve never really investigated it since it doesn’t exactly feature in our actual bill of rights, unlike things like non-discrimination. Ah, yes, non-discrimination. It’s that thing that even if you made up a right like that of reserving admission, you can’t apply it on discriminatory or arbitrary grounds.

Put differently, I can’t tell you to get out of my shop because I don’t like your socks and I can’t tell you that you may only enter if you’re wearing three delicate lacy garters around your left thigh.

How did we get away with forcing people to wear masks for two years then, other than just making it law? The same way we can allow people to vote the day they turn 18 but not the day prior; it’s this thing we call the law of general application and were it an Uno card, playing it would be akin to saying, “Shut up! I win.”

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General application works by applying the same blanketed rules over everybody so that there can be no discrimination, unless the blanketed rules have a discriminatory effect. Something like “No ginger hair” wouldn’t fly but telling everybody with hair to wear a cap in a public pool is totally doable.

Similarly, placing a ban on certain clothing to gain access to a private space is different from requiring certain clothing. It’s one thing to say no gowns and pyjamas but it’s whole another thing to say that access is reserved for those in stilettos.

So, if Spar makes it a matter of hygiene or has some concrete reasoning for banning pyjamas and gowns, they’re perfectly legally able. If anything, preventing their staff from being accidentally flashed 100 times a day would be a perfectly reasonable justification.

If the counter argument is comfort, there’s unfortunately no right to that and frankly, one can be comfortable in other clothes, after taking a shower and getting dressed (or as would be the case with many, before getting undressed).

We can all agree that you should be denied access to a shop if you came in dripping with blood, with mites in your hair and no clothing from your stomach down with yellow discharge coming out your toes. Not exactly appealing when the rest of us are buying bananas. Also not exactly hygienic to have pacing around said bananas.

Denying access to those in gowns and pyjamas is merely shifting that line from a far less extreme to somewhere that’s more applicable to our circumstances.

Let Spar do what they feel they must for the reasons they believe to keep their shops hygienic as long as they can back it up. Enjoy going to the shops in your tracksuit and flip flops while you can.

After all, once their Spar2U service is properly up and running with Pick n Pay’s asap, Checkers’ Sixty60, and Woolworths’ Dash, actually going to the shop will become such an exclusive event that you’ll probably have to wear black tie.