Some SA Apartments Banning Tattoos

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by monster

from the snippet of the article quoted by Bruce in the OP

"unless the tattoos are specific to the person's religion or national origin,"

-I'd say that'd probably cover it

My inner lawyer says: not so (and charges me $130 for the advice, the greedy bastard ) on the grounds that these tattoos are not specific to the person's religion (most Jewish people don't have them) or national origin (as above).

Mind you if this case DID arise I reckon the business owners would allow the exception on these grounds. Imagine the stink if they fought it, the headlines...

But this clause WOULD cover Maori (native New Zealander) facial tattoos. These are sometimes huge swirls that cover most of the face and can be intimidating to many people, and are sometimes associated with antisocial behaviour. And how about those Africans with the huge lip-disks (see IotD)?

I think what we have here is an apartment manager who has decided to try to keep the riff-raff out, but who has come up with a very clumsy way of doing so. I guess it was supposed to be easier to administer than a full character/background/appearance check, but in the end I think its going to be so inaccurate in weeding out the unwelcome, and so hard to administer, that it just won't work.
I'll be curious to see how long it lasts.