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They’re wearing costumes.
Wrong! Gabriel and Sarah Chrisman were wearing clothes.
“These aren’t costumes . . . This (clothing) is what we wear every day,”
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I do also, because that is precisely how I define costume - clothes which one would not usually wear, or are worn for a specific effect.
It’s not the only possible definition, but I settled upon it because it is concise, and practical.
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Did you have to get your arm extended to make that stretch? Cause, yeah, that’s just like having a rule about what can and cannot be worn on private property. Good lord.
You seem to be forgetting that when you buy a ticket to an event, you are agreeing to abide by their rules. If you don’t like the rules, don’t buy the ticket. It has nothing to do with physics.
Here’s my final say on this subject.
Butchart Gardens:
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Compromised to the point of asking Sarah Chrisman to simply remove her hat.
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When that compromised failed, they…
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Reimbursed them for their travel expenses.
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Reimbursed them for their tickets.
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Reimbursed them for the cost of the meal they had already eaten.
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Paid for a taxi to take them back home.
While on the other hand, the Chrismans…
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Refused all attempts at a compromise.
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Acted as if the rules don’t apply to them.
In my book, it’s pretty easy to see who the jerks were.
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I like gardens… I liked Butchart Gardens when I finally went. It is a bit expensive but if you are a garden person then it is worth it for one visit on vacation.
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Swords are allowed under the Zorro tolerance policy.
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Need to file that in my “I’m gonna steal that line” folder…
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You do seem to be a bit authoritarian, and you also seem to get a little bit uptight if people disagree with you. Perhaps a job at Butchart Gardens lies in your future.
(Edit - Mr. Carnage objects to this post, see his reply. I think myself it is legitimate comment but I do seem to be getting a number of complaints recently. Before I really overstep the line and get into trouble, will somebody of standing tell me if they think I’m going too far? Genuine, nonironic enquiry. I recently closed an account on another board because someone accused me pretty point blank of stalking, only to be told it was a joke. So my assessment of my own judgement is poor at the moment.)
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FETCH ME MY FIGHTING TROUSERS!
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I accept your apology.
It’s been my experience that most rules (i.e. “laws”) are put in place in order to maintain a functioning, safe, and just society. I’m fine with rules. I like rules. A collectively agreed upon set of rules are the only reason I don’t die in a car accident when I go outside.
But I don’t like rules that infringe on my liberty, or those of others, in an over-reactionary attempt to deal with the one asshole. I have to deal with idiotic restrictions about liquids on airplanes that do nothing to keep me safer because of one asshole.
It’s also been my experience that many rules, including many laws, are exceedingly ill-considered, do little or nothing or address the real problem they were designed to solve (usually because the people making the rules misunderstand what the real problem is), and unnecessarily curtail the liberty of innocent people as a result. In my experience, if it’s not related to safety, any rule related to choice of clothing is the latter kind of rule. Dress codes are almost never about solving real problems. They are about those in authority imposing some bullshit moralistic worldview on everybody around them. Dress codes are dumb, they restrict people to no purpose, and they either don’t address real problems or fail to solve them.
I agree. So what? I strongly doubt that whatever issue the Gardens management perceive to have arisen as a result of previous costumed visitors is genuinely addressed by their vague “ban all costumes” policy. Their own implementation of the policy belies the reasons they offer for having it, and the reasons they offer for having it are idiotic.
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But that’s not what the issue is.
I don’t see a lot of support here for the Crismans specifically. I think the Crismans are insufferable, hypocritical, ignorant, hipster asshats. But I also think they should be allowed to wear whatever clothing they want, wherever they want, so long as it doesn’t compromise their own safety or the safety and liberty of others, because I think I should be allowed to do so, too.
Yes, the Gardens’ response was polite and laudable. (Point of clairty: the Crismans were not given taxi fare home. They live in Port Townsend, WA. They were given taxi fare back to their hotel in Victoria.) Their response was also unnecessary, because it was triggered by their own stupid policy with no sensible basis. I’m not giving the Garden points for being polite when they implement a vague, inconsistent, and restrictive policy they have no justification for.
Why of course, I’ll serve you a burger and beer, or I’ll let you attend this concert, or you can come and see this attraction. But you can’t wear that NDP supporter pin. And your girlfriend can’t wear that spaghetti strap tank top. And your friend has to take off that turban. And we don’t serve brown people. If you don’t like the rules, you don’t have to buy the ticket.
Sorry, no, that’s bullshit. It doesn’t matter that you are a private business. You do not have the right to restrict my liberties as a condition of service (unless in a manner that better serves the collective liberties of the other patrons). You should not have the right to deny me service because you don’t like the clothes I’m wearing. Just because you advised me of a bullshit policy in the fine print of a ticket I bought does not mean that the bullshit policy is legal or justified or sensible or inoffensive.
If they had tried to deny entry to a woman in a niqab, or a man in a turban, or a soldier in uniform, that would clearly be illegal. But what about a guy in a tuxedo? What about a woman in her work clothes (and her work is ‘belly dancer’)? A guy in a keffiyeh and thawb, but he’s white, so that’s not his native dress, it must a costume, right? Do I get turned away if I show up dressed as Commander Riker? As Malcolm Reynolds? As John Bender? As Sam Spade? Why? Why not? Is it still a costume if they don’t realize it’s a costume?
Strictly speaking, turning away the Crismans was legal, but they have no justifiable basis to have done so. Because what’s the difference? What’s the thing that they think they can point to and say “this is allowed in our establishment but this is not”? What possible justification can they offer that “corset and Victorian dress is allowed but corset and Victorian dress and flowery hat is not allowed”?
The issue isn’t that the Crismans are asshats, or that the Gardens’ staff are polite when they discriminate against you. The issue is that stupid rules deserve to be challenged and broken. Stupid rules deserve to be called out and changed. Rosa Parks and Gandhi and Nelson Mandela and the Suffragettes acted like the rules didn’t apply to them, and the rules changed. That’s a good thing.
It’s a stupid rule. It deserves to be called out and challenged.
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But I’m still unclear - is Pokeman Go allowed in the gardens?
Your search - pokeman site:butchartgardens.com - did not match any documents.
But the garden etiquette prohibits throwing, catching or kicking games, running or jogging.
Without Pokeman Go, I imagine a lot of Pokeman players are going to suffer from a serious case of boredom in the park!
Seriously though, what I really want to see is a YouTube guided tour of the garden, hosted by someone the likes of James Veitch, wearing a Future Shop salesperson’s shirt, going off script at length about the untold floral backstories in the garden. Now THAT would be entertaining!
Your basic argument is Things aren’t the way I want them!!! Waahhhh!
Let’s say I run a bowling alley. I have a sign up which says “Bowling shoes must be worn by all bowlers while on the lanes.” Are you saying that if you think it’s a stupid rule, and you try bowling in street shoes, I don’t have the right to toss you out?
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If so, I can understand why they wanted her to take it off.
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Please fill in the blank:
In a bowling alley, street shoes must not be worn because they will damage the floor.
In Butchart Gardens, Victorian clothing and hats must not be worn because ________________
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Your argument is “if it’s legal, everyone should shut up and take it.”
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Based upon their choice of make-believe as a lifestyle, I consider them unreliable narrators on the matter. All costumes are clothes in that they clothe the body they are upon. Not all clothes are costumes - and costumes need not be as distinct or anachronistic as those that the couple choose to wear (take Scottish kilts or Southern German Tracht) to function as costume.
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