We all know that there are certain rules and regulations that we need to follow when visiting an establishment, whether it’s a bar, a restaurant, or a store. But sometimes, these rules can seem a little bit absurd, and even lead to someone being banned from the establishment altogether. In this collection of stories, people share the absurd reasons they were banned from an establishment.
All content has been edited for clarity.
They Don’t Like Losing Money
“This is how I got banned from Chuck E Cheese.
I figured out that I could take a ball from the game where you shoot the clown’s teeth and use it at the skeeball machine. The skeeball machine would count the points but not the ball used, which enabled me to play forever with just one ball and max out the machine. I did it on two skeeball machines before someone noticed and I got banned/kicked out.”
Free Walter
“My roommates and I along with a few friends went out to a bar one night to drink. We had grown a single beautiful watermelon in our yard and brought him along to party with us. We named him Walter Melon (pronounced mell-own). We snuck the watermelon into the bar, and generally just passed it around and praised him for being a good melon. At first, the bouncers didn’t care, they came up to us and just told us to be careful with it. One of my friends got pretty dr*nk and started holding it above his head and dancing with it. The bouncers had enough of our shenanigans and tried to take it. My dr*nk friend agreed with them that he’d leave with the melon.
A few minutes later, my friend makes it back into the bar with the melon under his jacket. He had snuck in through the back and avoided the bouncers. Once they saw the melon again they got pretty p*ssed lol and kicked us all out. We argued for our melon back but to no avail. RIP Walter.
Funnily enough, a group of dudes who left the bar had seen/heard about the melon incident. As we were all hanging outside the bar waiting for an Uber, the dudes drove past, stopped, and handed us a pumpkin lol. So we ended the night melonless but with a new pumpkin friend. We got banned temporarily but I could probably go back.”
They Really Just Make Up Their Own Rules
“My friend and I were ‘Banned for Life’ from a Casino in Las Vegas 20-something years ago. We had gone for his 21st birthday which was the week prior. Despite being of legal age he looked appropriately 12. After being carded by a waitress for the 700th time, she recommended he go to the security desk, show his ID, and get a stamp on his hand showing he was 21, that way he wouldn’t have to keep pulling out his license. Great. We go to security, they stamp my hand in 2 seconds, but start examining his ID really closely. They pull out the guidebook for all the State’s driver’s licenses. They call over a supervisor.
Finally, they just say ‘No, sorry, this is fake. It says Under 21 on it.’ My friend at first calmly tried to explain that he turned 21 the week before, and was under 21 when he got the license, which is why it was on there. He lived in one state, was going to college in another, and hadn’t gone home to renew his license yet, but it wasn’t expired so it was valid.
They said, ‘This is a private establishment, we’re not comfortable with it, and we’re asking you to leave.’
Now he had a bad temper, which I knew, and he had been drinking. I tried to diffuse the situation and said, ‘Hey, f*ck this place. There are 100 casinos on the strip. Let’s go somewhere else.’
He agreed and we headed for the door. 10 feet from the exit I hear, ‘F*ck it, I’m giving that a*shole a piece of my mind.’
Five minutes later, we were taken to a room off the floor, had our pictures taken, and were told we were banned for life, and if we ever returned we would be charged with trespassing. I haven’t been back to Vegas since that, but if I do I’d like to walk in to test their facial recognition software lol.”
What Did They Do Lmao
“Back in the late 1980s, I was in the Florida Keys with a group of friends. I got dr*nk and went to bed and some of the guys went out bar hopping. The next morning a deputy sheriff showed up at the place we were renting, told us to pack our things and he would take us to the county line and we were not to come back.
So not only did I get banned from an entire Florida county, I never did get a straight story about what the guys who were at the bar did to get us banned.”
Garlic Butter Is Pretty Good Though
“My family has been banned from a local Marcos pizza for years because of my mom. She used to have some anger issues and also really really loves garlic butter. When Marcos forgot to include the garlic butter with the order she called and asked them to deliver the single cup of garlic butter to our house. Marcos (reasonably) said they can’t do that, but she could come to get it. She stormed over there with our pizza and proceeded to smear the whole thing on their windows and counters. Haven’t had Marcos since.”
Banned Is A Little Dramatic
“I was banned from a mall arcade when I was a kid for holding all the whack-a-moles down.”
Just Give Them The Refund
“I was doing a history project on Poland, and it was well-known this teacher gave an extra letter grade for bringing in food from the country. A friend from my previous school brought me to a bakery that made Kołacz which his family loved. I ordered one for my class, paying a deposit and specifying the day I was due to present. I ran in before school to get my order, and the woman behind the counter (the manager) told me that whoever took my order never sent it; there was no Kołacz in the store. Despite presenting my invoice and pointing out the date they agreed to have it, she refused to refund my deposit on the basis that ‘We can make you one for tomorrow.’ I had to call the credit card company and dispute the charge that way.
A few days later, my friend called me and asked why we were both banned from the bakery.”
That’s Disgusting
“Banned from the college cafeteria for taking in a digital food safety thermometer, and a copy of the state health department temperature ranges.
They were consistently 20°F-40°F low, and food poisoning was a common problem.”
Banned For Being Too Good Is Crazy
“When I was 12, my favorite thing to do was play laser tag at the one laser tag place in our town. I’d go every Friday night and play for 3 hours or so. There weren’t many other regular players, so nobody else was getting better at it like I was. After about a year, I was just wrecking everyone and the owner ended up banning me from the place because it was driving away customers. It really sucked because it was my favorite activity and I was just immediately cut off from it.
6 years later I found a place in another city that had other players that played regularly so I was able to start playing again with people at similar skill levels.”
Don’t Sell It Then
“Got banned from the mall when I was younger because I wore an inappropriate shirt that I bought at the mall.”
That Is In Fact Stealing
“Got banned from a local KMart about 25yrs ago for figuring out that if you just slapped the handle on the old twist turn candy dispensers that took a quarter it would just give you free candy.
Yeah, they call that stealing. Took my photo and everything.”
Bring Back The Cheap Season Passes
“I got banned from Six Flags Great Adventure (NJ) several times in the early 90s. Back when I was in high school, season passes for like $40 or something, making it a no-brainer to buy one if you intended to go at least twice. My friend and I went probably 5-7 days a week since we lived close by. We knew the park and its operations better than pretty much anyone who didn’t work there, and 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.
The thing is, the only IDs we had on us were our Season Passes, which we always assigned fake names for no preplanned reason. (Summer of 1994 my pass said Oskar Schindler). We eventually got in so much trouble they would take our passes and tell us we were banned for life. Well, another $40 at the front gate and boom, back in as Itzhak Stern. They needed at that time to figure out the flaws in their system.”
They Probably Thought You Were Spying
“Taking pictures of the produce and price signs at a small grocery store while shopping. I was just trying to keep track of which stores had which food at cheaper prices so I could plan my shopping trips.”
Yeah That’s Pretty Dangerous
“I was banned from K mart. A friend and I went to the local one and took one of those air duster can things and froze bouncy balls with it. If you tip it upside down and spray it a super cold liquid comes out. Cold enough to freeze things and even cold burn you. We froze bouncy balls and shattered them. on the ground. We did it to 2 of them. We were both banned. We were also 17 at the time. We were idiots.”
Seems Like A Great Place
“A bar owner of a dangerous dive bar where I live got super dr*nk and enlisted the help of 10 regulars to beat the sh*t out of one of my friends. He was hospitalized and then they double-charged me before we left and then I was banned. It’s been years and to this day we still don’t know what started it. Somebody gets jumped behind the bar nearly every single night, so it was only a matter of time. I talked it over with my police officer buddy and they sent officers to request the recording of the parking lot from that night. The tapes ‘were missing’ and we were sh*t out of luck.”
Yikes
“I used to work at a sushi restaurant. I got fired/banned because I told the manager that some of the food smelled like it was expired and that maybe we should throw it out. Next thing I know, she’s giving me my check and kicking me out.”