It’s for security reasons.
When you are entering the building, isn’t it almost always the left door that is locked? In America we tend to travel on the right side of things, traffic, stairs, walk ways, DOORS.
You may not notice the left door is locked on your way in, but when you are fleeing after a robbery, when you try to flee out the right side door (from the inside) you have to take precious seconds to change doors.
Granted, unless one of the doors is broken, there’s probably no good reason to leave a door locked while the business is open.
That said, of all the things in life to get perturbed about (and it’s clear that it perturbs some posters pretty significantly), this is a pretty ridiculous thing to let get under your skin.
Well, I suppose of all the things in life to get perturbed about, getting perturbed about people getting perturbed about leaving a door unlocked while a business is open is a pretty ridiculous thing to let get under your skin.
I’m not perturbed…just amused and a bit boggled.
(bolding mine)
“It’s for security reasons.” :dubious:
Is this something you can provide a (believable) cite for?
Or is this just a WAG? (I’m inclined to think WAG.)
How in the world is “taking precious seconds to change doors” going to add to or enhance “security”, in any practical way? 
the actual answer is it’s a safety issue, but not one listed as of yet.
it’s to provide additional exit in case of emergency, but it is commonly understood only one door will be operational under regular conditions. in case of emergency, regulations dictate a need for the additional available outflow.
this is the same principle as extra “emergency exit only” doors which may or may not stand alone. in some cases, inactive doors are labeled as such.
so–do you get as annoyed at exit only doors?
as was stated, there are several obvious indicators for the second door being non-regular use: it’s called the “inactive” door for a reason; the hardware is called “dummy” hardware for a reason.
the extra-opening for wider-needs on occasion is obviously a secondary benefit. in some cases, it’s an aesthetic/architectural addition (but i doubt that’s mostly the case in these examples).
finally, the inactive door in many buildings MUST remained locked because of the in/outflow of air–not for energy efficiency, but due to the stack effect of air in buildings.
in muliti-story buildings with main entrance lobbies, the stack effect can be so strong that if both doors are open, a rush of air blasts through the elevator shafts causing the double doors to slam shut dangerously hard, causing unpredictable harm to people as well as damaging the doors (just think about how often they are glass).
in nearly all cases, tho, the the inactive door is simply there as an additional outflow exit in emergencies only.
so while yeah it looks like a door, it’s not there for circumventing a line or allowing additional inflow or not having to wait a nanosecond longer. it’s kind of not a door by layman definitions, so instead of being angry, maybe just think about it in different terms?
Around here, it’s common for only the right door (going in) to be unlocked at small businesses, especially non-retail. Even the government center does that, but at least they have a sign, “use other door.” I think it’s due to laziness, not security. The person opening the door in the morning thinks, “Why waste time unlocking both doors when all we need is one?”
In my lifetime, I’ve sometimes unlocked the other door, thinking I was helping out the establishment, only to be criticized as causing more work for the closing crew, and decreasing security, as the closing crew might not check a door that they expected to be latched all the time.
So for all those people claiming that it’s for good and routine reasons, why does the locked door almost always have a sign on it that says “This door to remain unlocked during business hours?” Might be a local law or something, but nearly all the locked doors I run into (literally) have that sign plastered on them somewhere.
because in some cases that’s true.
http://www.locksmithledger.com/article/10238156/life-safety-issues-with-exit-doors
but in most cases of small business, the door is a safety exit only. in higher-traffic places, like a seven11, the in/outflow capacity is higher which affects the regulations more so than, say, the local palm reading establishment.
edit: any place not keeping the door unlocked when it’s posted it should be is in violation of the codes of their establishments and can and should be reported.
but all this “some small business sure gets on my nerves because there not-a-door wasn’t being a door” is a very different matter under very different regulations.
for the record, my art studio space is in an architectural elements company and i trade out space rental for work sometimes. we sell mainly doors to companies and have a pretty good handle on the regulations (we do antique salvaging and have to know the codes and ordinances so we don’t waste time buying doors that are too small to resell). we get all kinds of business owners looking for what they need to bring their business up to code or to find something that’s both decorative and legally utilitarian. there’s a lot of things to consider, and different inspectors with different regulations.
our building, for example, has an inactive door that is not required to be unlocked. or ADA door/ramp is a secondary door and we have several other work-arounds to accomodate ADA needs (and we have several serial customers who are disabled. in no case does the inactive door factor into anything more than a bonus door for large object entry and a secondary fire exit. we’re kind of low-traffic tho.
This would only make sense if they can be opened in an emergency - if they have these special emergency handles. Some newer doors have those, but they usually also have a big “Caution, use only in case of emergency, otherwise, a loud alarm will sound” sign on them.
And I have mostly seen those not as part of double doors, but as seperate doors, one normal, one emergency exit.
Do you have a cite that this is a rule or law (MUST), or are you just saying what’s comfortable?
During the nanosecond when that was announced, I must have been outside trying to pull open an inactive door. Or, to think about it in different terms, was that an inactive not a door? Or because the door (or not a door) was locked, perhaps it was an active not a door? Right next to an identical unlocked active door? Or is that one better thought of as an unlocked and thus inactive not a door, right next to an identical locked, and thus activated, inactive door?
When I think about this for more than 5 minutes, it makes even less sense:
we aren’t talking about “leaving doors open (by putting wedges or stoppers there) so the wind can blow through” but “leaving doors unlocked so that customers can easily enter the business”.
If one of two doors is locked, people still have to open the unlocked door, and wind can still enter the building. Unless you are thinking of two sets of double doors that are meant as airlock, and you then lock two in a zig-zag fashion.
But frankly, if winds are that much of a problem, you can simply replace the double doors with a rotating door.
I still vote for “employees or manager who are to lazy to spend 5 min. unlocking the other door each day and then cite security because the employees are too dumb to lock both doors in the evening.” (If your employees are that dumb, you shouldn’t let them lock up in the first place, but let the manager do it.)
It’s definitely not always the left one. At the Moe’s I’m thinking of, it’s the right one. And it has a permanent “use other door” sign.
Sometimes people have to concede ideals to the realities of real life.
Has anyone actually been truly inconvenienced by this? I mean, really?
Pithy, yes. But how’s the reality of real life impossible for the manager - assuming that he gets a bigger paycheck because they have two more brain cells - to lock the door himself in the evening? Is the managers time too precious to stay after 5 pm?
In the often-seen case where both doors are too narrow for people with strollers, wheelchair, rollators, crutches, shopping trolleys to pass through - which is why the fire dept. regulations mandated two doors that together achieve sufficient wideness in the first place - having only one door unlocked is quite a bother, yes. In case of emergency, esp. since these older doors often have the bolt at the top and bottom with a lock, but no emergency lever = can’t be opened for exit without a key, it can lead to problems as the evucation is slowed.
But hey, as long as managers can blather about real life or safety, everything is peachy! Who needs non-standard customers, anyway?
vote for whatever you want–you’re all probably right. people only have double doors in a conspiracy to annoy you.
as for the stack-effect, google it. this isn’t the first time someone’s asked about why one door is locked on the internet, and that answer is given in other places.
this isn’t me telling you what i think, it’s me repeating the answer given to other people who have asked.
but i mean. probably what *you *think is true. prob’ly: stupid lazy managers. amiright?
btw, doors are a sort of airlock. they’re not like a deep-space airlock, but they have weather seals that do control air escape, so much so the stack effect really does affect them. we’ve all experienced this in real life-- doors that blast open with little effort or doors that seem like they weight ten tons with you try to open them on windy days in air-stacked buildings.
i have this kind of apparently dumb idea:
why don’t you ll just ask the manager/own in all the businesses you go into every time the doors are locked? do yourself a little amateur surveying?
In addition to the reasons listed so far, doors in retail establishments are subject to a lot of traffic and abuse, and tend to break, especially the automatic door closer. Many establishments will keep one door shut because it’s broken, and when fixed they want to keep the wear and tear on a single door and leave a working one in reserve.
so just to get this straight, the contention is if anything is door-shaped, it damn well needs to be open for you to enter as you please?
i’ve never in my life considered it an inconvenience to be smart enough to enter a place, especially not so much so i have to speculate the REAL problem must be some personality, work ethic or intelligence flaw in the people running the business…
NO. it’s because they hate their customers and want to make them all feel angry and stupid.
