A pub at a centre of a row over a display of “racist dolls” has been removed and barred from featuring in the definitive list of the UK’s best pubs, known as The Good Beer Guide.
The ban comes after police seized several of the soft toys from the White Hart Inn in Grays on April 4, as part of an investigation into an allegation of an alleged hate crime reported earlier this year.
Landlady Benice Ryley said she has displayed the collection of around 30 dolls, donated by her late aunt and customers, in the pub for nearly 10 years.
As the row grew, including an intervention by Home secretary Suella Braverman, CAMRA released a statement saying, it: “believes pubs should be welcoming and inclusive places and it’s baffling that any pub would choose to discriminate against customers or potential customers by continuing to display offensive material”.
On their official twitter page, a spokesperson for CAMRA wrote:
“CAMRA believes pubs should be welcoming and inclusive places and it’s baffling that any pub would choose to discriminate against customers or potential customers by continuing to display offensive material.
“We have had clear national guidelines in place since 2018 that no pub should be considered for an award if it displays offensive or discriminatory material on the premises, or on social media associated with the pub.
“We are currently discussing why this guidance was seemingly ignored by our South West Essex branch & instructed them not to consider the White Hart, Grays, Essex, for future awards, or inclusion in our Good Beer Guide, while these discriminatory dolls continue to be on display.”
“We have therefore made an edit to the entry on WhatPub and the resulting Good Beer Guide App description to warn about the discriminatory material on display, while we continue to review the situation.”
The group also said that a change had been made to the White Hart’s listing to warn about “discriminatory material.” They added: “As many have pointed out, the description featured on CAMRA’s database Whatpub and the Good Beer Guide App, submitted by the local branch in question, is problematic and makes light of the offensive nature of the materials displayed at the White Hart.
On its website, the pub said it had won the Southwest Essex CAMRA Pub Of The Year awards in the past due to its “great service”.
Mr Ryley said the pub was used by South West Essex CAMRA and Thurrock Beer Festival for meetings.
