Please boycott Metro Hotel in Woking - read for more details

So with comments like this:

"While I fully support the military, there have been instances in the South East (I only know of stuff happening here, but I assume it's country wide to a certain degree) of squaddies returning from Iraq/Afghanistan and getting in complete states through excessive drinking."

"and a pattern of behaviour which is repeated week after week in towns in close proximity to army barracks. If there had only been one incident in the past, say, 10 years involving squaddies, then it would be equally stupid to have a "no squaddies" policy"

what's the excuse for all the trouble occurring in most towns on every weekend? or are we blaming soldiers for all of it? Our prisons are not full of soldiers, they are overcrowded with law breakers from the general population.Why just ban military personnel and not ALL Young Men?

This could easily have been my husband being turned away from this hotel. A decent, hard working, caring family man who is a serving member of British Army.

How many of the people making comments such as "I would prefer not to stay in hotels patronised by people who have undergone a degree of brutalisation as part of their training" would turn away a soldier if there was bomb requiring diffusing in their back garden, or turn down a helicopter if they needed rescue from a flooded town, or turn away a Greengoddess covering a fire strike? Tell you what, stay inside and practice your arm chair commantry from the safety of your little bubble.

No wonder the army is shrinking to such an extent. Whilst we have an army of 'volunteers' we don't need conscription. How long will this last?

It would appear the article has been silently updated:

The hotel has apologised, describing the incident as "a mistake".

The Metro Hotel is owned by a company called American Amusements Ltd, also based in Woking. It apologised, describing the incident as "a mistake",

When I read it earlier, it was 'no comment.'

Sounds like an overzealous receptionist, rather than hotel policy.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=13912083

may want to merge these threads, to..

Cardelia wrote: »

Your point appears to have changed from

to the above post. My point is that there is a good reason for soldiers being excluded from places like hotels, namely they belong to a group of people who have been identified as having a greater than average chance of causing trouble to the hotelier. That is the soldier stereotype, that is the good reason for soldiers not being allowed into some hotels. You are agreeing with me that the soldier stereotype is true, therefore that is the reason for exclusion you were looking for in your earlier post.

Why is this a good reason? Young men technicly belong to a group identified as having a greater than average chance of causing trouble but we don't apply that as a reason to ban them from places.

Quote "The current size of the British Army is just under 100,000 soldiers. If just 0.5% of these soldiers cause trouble in a year, that's almost 500 incidents".

Let's remember the IF in the quote above. The army is not 100 000 of squaddies! A large proportion of this 100,000 includes married personnel with families, just like you. Another large proportion of this figure will be away on operations, a fairly equal number will be involved in pre-training to take over from those out on operations, another large number will be living overseas (Germany, Cyprus etc), the figure includes Drs/Nurses/ Vets/Pilots/Padre's/Dentists and many other trades requiring far more responsibility than the average job in a local town. Towns and cities have a far higher crime rate per capita than the random speculative example above.