Seattle dive bar becomes first to ban Google Glass
Owner says "it's because it's kind of a private
place that people go." Will other businesses follow?
by Casey Newton
March 8, 2013 3:51 PM PST
Google Glass won't be available to consumers for months,
but there's at least one Seattle bar where the eyewear will not be welcome.
The 5 Point, a self-described dive bar in Seattle's
Belltown neighborhood, posted a notice to its Facebook page this week telling
Glass Explorers looking to grab a pint that they will need to remove their
$1,500 spectacles. The story was noted today on GeekWire.
"For the record, The 5 Point is the first Seattle
business to ban in advance Google Glasses," the post reads. "And ass
kickings will be encouraged for violators."
"I'm a thought leader," deadpanned Dave
Meinert, the bar's owner, in an interview on Seattle's KIRO-FM. "First you
have to understand the culture of the 5 Point, which is a sometimes seedy,
maybe notorious place. People want to go there and be not known...and
definitely don't want to be secretly filmed or videotaped and immediately put
on the Internet."
Meinert admitted he was having a bit of fun: "Part
of this is a joke, to be funny on Facebook, and get reaction."
"But part of it's serious," he continued,
"because we don't let people film other people or take photos unwanted of
people in the bar, because it is kind of a private place that people go."
Seattle is a famously tech-savvy town, of course, and the
5 Point sits close to a new Amazon campus. But it's that same tech savvy that's
leading business owners like Meinert to consider the implications of having
customers with face-mounted cameras, snapping pictures of a diverse and
sometimes intoxicated clientele.
It's safe to assume the 5 Point won't be the last
establishment to tell customers to leave Glass at the door.
Update: A Google spokesperson responds: "It is still
very early days for Glass, and we expect that as with other new technologies,
such as cell phones, behaviors and social norms will develop over time."
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