Three Crowns, Stoke Newington

It seems you think that by calling it whinging, you can delegitimise my complaint. fatpav, everyone reading this can see through your hollow defence of this sorry excuse for a pub. just stop talking now before you make yourelf look even more pathetic.

20 Mar 2008 14:02

Three Crowns, Stoke Newington

In response to fatpav: Yes it is a wee shame, and also extremely annoying.
You say that if the doorman didn't let me in he must have had a very good reason. Well if he did have a legitimate reason, why did he lie and tell us that there was a private party on? I'm sorry that you don't have the mental capacity to understand what i've written about this pub - Clearly if he'd told me straight away that the age limit was 25, i'd have accepted that and gone elsewhere. What I object to is being lied to, and in my book that's fairly jutifiable.

I was really polite to the doorman, and I did not as you say "berate him when he asked for ID", EVEN THOUGH he smirked as he asked for it (after lying to my face). However, when he refused to explain why he didn't just say the age limit was 25 in the first place, i may have gotten pissed off, but i'm sure anyone reading this will understand why. Even you, with your frankly creepy desire to defend this pub (what, were you conceived in the toilets there or something?), cannot tell me you'd be happy if a doorman lied to your face and turned you away?

There's pretty much nothing worse you could reasonably expect to experience from someone who is supposed to be providing a service to the general public than have them lie, espescially when there is absolutely no good reason for it. The pub may have the right to not let me in (even with NO good reason, as was the case), but I ALSO have the right to tell whoever I want that they should AVOID THIS PUB, and I think most people would agree that it is far less petty than your pathetic doorman feeding lies to decent customers just because he can. Personally, it seems obvious that any place that needs a half-witted loser to stand up for it should be avoided.

5 Dec 2007 16:46

Three Crowns, Stoke Newington

I had a very bad experience at this pub.

I went a couple of months ago, and was told by the 40-something african bouncer that there was a private party inside, so we could not come in. Seeing the pubgoers through the window however, it looked like everyone was sitting in small groups, and while my friend and I were standing at the door, the doorman let two people in, seemingly without any 'invite' or other check. After confronting him about this, we were told that it was actually over-25s only, and were asked to provide ID, reluctantly admitting that there was no private party after all.

Both being 23 years old, neither of us could provide this ID, but when our 21 year old friend arrived, we asked him to attempt to go in to see if he was challenged. He got in, no questions asked. When we asked the bouncer why he had let our younger friend in but not us, he told us he 'thought he was already in and had gone out to get some cash from the machine'.

At this point, we asked to see the manager, as we did not believe anything this guy was telling us. The bouncer refused to get the manager, or anyone else to confirm or deny his reasons for not letting us in. In desperation to prove a point, we asked two very kind ladies on their entering the pub if they would mind getting the manager for us. They obliged, and the english 30-something manager (we presumed) came out, and before he got to us the bouncer went just inside and had a quiet word with him, he then came out and told us it was indeed over-25s only. He was, dare I say, smug, and offered no apology.

We were not sure if we were still being deceived and dismissed, or whether it was just the bouncer who had lied to us. Either way, we had to move on. I had in fact been in the pub twice previously to this (since becoming the Three Crowns), but as you might expect have not been back since, except once about a week later when I went in and asked a barman what the age limit was - he didn't know, but guessed 21, then went away to check with someone, then came back to say it was 25. This almost confirmed the truth of this for me, except that I saw that the same manager was in that day, which gave me a small seed of doubt, although maybe that's a bit paranoid.

The long and short of it is, the bouncer clearly lied to us, for no reason that we can tell. He must not have liked the look of us, even though we were respectably dressed and polite. The pub has no signs stating its policy on minimum age, and the staff didn't even seem too sure. It seems to me that they will let anyone in, but reserve this high minimum age 'policy' as an excuse to refuse entry to those younger clientele that they do not want in their pub.

A really horrible and needless event, far more off-putting than any bad service I have experienced elsewhere. Please avoid this pub if you can, treatment like this deserves a bit of a repercussion for the guilty party. Thank you for reading.

3 Sep 2007 16:52