• WHEN a woman in a bar asks for a taxi, her request should be granted without question. But allowing hospitality venues to police themselves is not enough.

This is borne out by my experience while I was drinking in a pub in NW6 last week. There was live entertainment and the pub was busy.

I was standing at the bar, when a woman approached staff and asked for a taxi, and I was surprised when staff refused just to help her and wouldn’t call one. She was the worse for drink and vulnerable.

But the staff answer was: “We don’t have taxi numbers”. I thought “You’ve got a phone in your pocket. look one up. How hard can that be?”

I demanded to speak to the person in charge, and they called her, and she told me that the woman was with the man in the hat, and she told me that the woman was his responsibility. I thought sexist phrases like that one really ought to have been cast to the dustbin of history long ago.

It is events such as this that make it difficult for a woman to venture out and go to a hospitality venue. If such venues can’t or won’t police themselves, then it is time something was done.

G SMITH
Address supplied