Occasionally, the President of the United States of America goes to a shop or a restaurant just like a normal person (if normal people went around with posses of armed guards). Has any business owner ever said “Nope, the President’s not welcome here!”?
ISTR there were one or more candidates who were politely asked not to come into a local store or coffee shop or whatever for a campaign photo op because it was just too disruptive, but I’ve never heard of anyone telling a sitting President being turned away.
Guy comes up to hotel front desk.
Clerk: “I’m sorry sir, we are completely booked up.”
Guy: “You’re completely booked? Tell me, if the President of the United States walked in right now and wanted a room, what would you do?”
Clerk: “Well in that case, I’m sure we’d be able to find him a room. We’d have to.”
Guy: “Fine, I’ll take that room.”
—Told to me when I was 15 years old by my cousin the hotel manager.
Almost certainly at some point or another but I can’t cite to anything. I’m just basing this on conversations with people I’ve known, including a secret service agent, a person who helped manage a facility right near the White House that occasionally hosted the president, and a person who worked in the Office of Management and Budget and sometimes dealt with the president’s office.
The president (almost) never just pops into a place to buy a hamburger. The president also makes statements everywhere he goes, so the places he chooses to go are places that will reflect well on him. This might be a local bookstore (because he’s well read), an art gallery (because he’s cultured), a nice restaurant (because he has good taste), or a burger joint (because he’s a regular guy too). He is going to choose to go to places where the proprietors share his values and would be likely to welcome him. It’s not hard for the president to find businesses like this. I’m guessing they are places owned by campaign donors or which are known to party members and campaign donors as friendly. So, your refusenik store owner probably already missed the cut even before he ever got the chance to get huffy and kick the president out by the scruff of the neck.
Second, the president’s day is heavily scheduled and if he is appearing in public, the secret service will have scouted and secured the location long before he arrived. So there really isn’t any shopkeeper who suddenly gets surprised by the president on his door step and gets to make a big political statement by denying him entry. If the shopkeeper didn’t want him there, the secret service would have known about that in advance and the president would never have shown up. But here is where the shopkeeper gets to quietly refuse the president – if it’s just too disruptive to have the president that day or if the shopkeeper can’t accommodate the president’s security needs, he will say no and the president will just schedule someplace else. There are no hard feelings.
But what if the shopkeeper did want to make a big deal out of refusing the president? He’ll have a tough time getting traction with his story. He can tell the newspapers and cable networks that the secret service approached him about a visit but the journalists are unlikely to care. Even if they did care, they would want to confirm the details of the story with the secret service or the president’s press secretary. The secret service isn’t going to talk about his schedule. The press secretary would downplay the conflict and likely say something about scheduling choices causing the president to visit other places that day, without ever confirming or denying whether the shopkeeper was actually approached about a potential presidential visit. The story would just die on the vine. Maybe these days the shopkeeper could tell the story on Facebook but who would read it?
Nobody ever mentions that the room they are holding for the President costs $2,500 a night.
I can honestly say that if hussein obama were to show up at my place of business I would not welcome him. Period. I would not seek out the media, but if asked, I would not make up some lame excuse such as “too disrtupive”. I would simply say he was not welcome.
Thanks. You’re a true patriot.
How about his cousin Barack?
Clerk: “Oh, I’m sorry, sir, we can’t give you that room: we have to keep it open in case the President shows up”
Moderator Note
Let’s keep the political opinions out of GQ and stick to the factual question being asked.
No warning issued.
I walked into a restaurant with a Air Force captain. and he was refused service. 1969 in Miss.
BTW. he was black.
When President Obama visited the company where I work, an entire very large building was shut down for a day in order for him to be given a 15-minute tour of an area - hundreds of employees were instructed to work either from home or elsewhere on campus that day.
Like Oddperson, above I too would not want the current president in my place of business. I disagree with the unemployment rate dropping from 11+% to 5%. Disagree with the killing of the guy who planned The 9/11 attack. Disagree with Wall Street profiting from the S&P 500 increasing 250+% from 806 to 2065 over nearly 7 years. Disagree with the too low, 1.65 per gallon gas I paid the other day. Hate the housing boom and zero inflation. Hate that the US quit that war with a country that posed zero threat to the US but killed 4,000 Americans and maimed 30,000 more and cost over a trillion .
Don’t darken my door current president guy.
Now… that MBA president… sent him in. Beer’s on me.
This isn’t exactly what the OP asked for, but apparently President Obama’s credit card was declined at a restaurant in New York. (For those who don’t click on the link, it was because he hadn’t been using it, so it was flagged for fraud when he tried to buy dinner. His wife had to pay instead).
And, perhaps more to the OP’s question, President Obama was unable to secure tee times at some exclusive golf courses in New York.
The correct answer is “The President would have phoned ahead.”
Moderator Note
As engineer_comp_geek already said, let’s keep political commentary out of this. (And yes, I recognize you are being sarcastic.) No warning issued.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Considering the massive waves of insta-hate and potential litigation, much motioned by flaccid news media seeking a hard-on substitute, merely for declining to make a cake for whatever group one doesn’t care for, such as nazis or gays or confederates, it would be massively better to let the fellow in with a polite smile immediately, even if you loathed him.
Not all publicity is good publicity.
You got a really disagree with the president’s politics to want to tell your grandkids “the president of the USofA wanted to drop in on me and I told him no.” I don’t think anyone, even today, would say “Good for you!” if they were even told Richard Nixon got turned away. The politics fades over time but the prestige of the office never does. In 20 or 30 years it would be something to treasure.
Guy goes into the washroom at a posh restaurant when he’s on a date, and who does he meet in the washroom but … Prince Charles!
“Please, your highness,” he asks, “could you come over to my table after we’re done here and pretend you know me, and say ‘Hey, Ted, how’s it going?’ It would really impress my date.”
Prince Charles reluctantly agrees eventually after some pleading.
So Ted is sitting at his table, chatting with his date, when Prince Charles walks by and says “Hey, Ted! how’s it going? Fancy meeting you here.”
Ted replies “Get lost, Chuck. I’m with my date…”
The anecdote is from The Secrets of Power Negotiating by Roger Dawson. I think every company in the 1990s put people through that training.
I first heard that joke as a kid in the 1970s.