A publican who joined other bar owners in Westport, Co Mayo, in imposing a blanket ban on serving members of the Travelling community faces a 29-day wait before he knows whether his licence to trade will be renewed.
After hearing objections yesterday at Westport District Court to the renewal of the licence to Mr Chris Lavelle, Bridge Street, Westport, chairman of the Westport Branch of the Vintners Federation of Ireland (VFI), Judge Mary Devins said she would announce her decision on October 17th.
The Mayo Travellers Support Group lodged an objection to the renewal of Mr Lavelle's licence. The group proceeded with the objection despite a decision by Westport publicans last week to lift the ban on serving Travellers in their premises.
Ms Comiskey, a member of the Travelling community living in Ballina, told the court she was a member of the Mayo Travellers Support Group. She first heard of Mr Lavelle when reading about incidents in the newspapers and hearing things on the news. She heard of alleged incidents in Westport and a blanket ban imposed on Travellers. As a member of the Travelling community she would not be served in Westport.
She came to Westport as she wanted to know what had happened. If she and her family were going to suffer she wanted to know the rationale. At the garda station she was told there had been an incident. She wasn't part of it and it wasn't right not to serve her and members of her family because of what other people were alleged to have done. There were no prosecutions and no one was arrested. The comments of Mr Lavelle in the media were more than appalling. Because of the coverage she was a victim of a verbal attack in her home town and she had to get gardaí to intervene.
Ms Comiskey had been going to get a takeaway meal and was told to watch her children. A man said to her that there were going to be changes and she would want to be careful of them. She was told: "If I were you I would watch myself." She was afraid.
Ms Comiskey said she felt that if she visited Mr Lavelle's pub she would be asked to leave. She didn't consume alcohol and didn't go to pubs. "We have been working with groups and through training to try and break down the barriers. This thing in Westport has made life unbearable," she said.
They had asked for a meeting with the Westport vintners but they would not meet so they had to go to Minister Willie O'Dea.
In the past week Mr Lavelle announced the blanket ban was lifted. In her opinion it was lifted because of the objection.
Mr Eoin Garavan, for Mr Lavelle, put it to the witness there were 47 pubs in Westport and 35 were members of the VFI. Mr Lavelle was chairman and spokesman. The ban was imposed by all 35 members. Why was Mr Lavelle being singled out? Why not object to the licences of the other 34?
Ms Comiskey said she had made a conscious decision to object to Mr Lavelle's licence. He spoke for a group of publicans but specifically spoke for his own pub as well. She said he was guilty of discriminatory behaviour and unfit to hold a publican's licence.
Mr Lavelle told the court he was a licensee for 14 years and had been a reporter with the Mayo News before that. He had been elected as chairman by the local vintners in November.
Mr Lavelle told the judge that since the new Equal Status Act came in publicans were faced with a situation where they could refuse settled people but not Travellers.
Asked about the two Travellers who were banned from his premises, Mr Lavelle said membership of the Travelling community had nothing to do with it. They had been caught by staff stealing cider from the store.
Mr Lavelle stated: "I am not guilty of discrimination. It is a question of survival."
Another Westport publican, Mr Tom Gill, proprietor of the Anglers' Rest Bar, gave evidence to the court of 35 to 40 Travellers descending "like vultures" on his premises at 11.40 p.m. on July 25th. The Travellers tried to "baffle", "intimidate" and "confuse" him and helped themselves to drink from behind the bar. Mr Gill, who is in his 70s, said he had to call gardaí to remove the Travellers when they refused to leave.