My friends and I frequent a restaurant on my college campus. When we arrive, we drop all of our jackets and book-bags in some closets at the front of the restaurant before going in (at the request of the restaurant) so that we don’t have to put them on the floor under the tables and also, in part, to ensure that we are not bringing alcohol into the restaurant. We have always complied with this policy, because the restaurant asked us to. However, I recently found out from one of the restaurant’s former employees that the general manager would frequently ask restaurant staff to search through our bags while they were in those closets. I have never seen a sign posted in the restaurant indicating that this is policy.
I realize there are various moral and ethical implications at play, but is this legal? For what it’s worth, we are in the state of Connecticut, and the restaurant is an independent restaurant (not affiliated with our University).
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Is It Legal For A Restaurant To Search Bags At A Coat Check?
Posted on September 14, 2012.
No. That’s not legal and there is no legitimate reason for them to be doing it.
i would just call your local police to find out, not that those idiots will really do anything but i believe the law could change slightly depending on where you live. eather way it should be tho i’d be pissed.
if i were you those bastard would be in the hospital NOW 🙁
No one is forcing you to go to that restaurant. If you don’t like it, don’t go.
It is their restaurant.
That’s an interesting question. Your Fourth Amendment rights aren’t really in play here, because the restaurant is not the government and they are not forcing you to be searched. Certainly you could choose not to go to the restaurant at all.
When you check your coats and bags what you are doing is “bailing” goods. That means you are temporarily entrusting your property to another who has some responsibility for keeping it safe. You are the bailor, the restaurant is the bailee, and your property is the bailment. Bailments happen all the time. If you leave your car at a mechanic, or leave a ring to be appraised, or leave your clothes at the dry cleaner, you are making a bailment.
The bailee (the restaurant) has a responsibility to safeguard your property. But your question is whether they can search it. If it were a locked briefcase then it would be easy to say that breaking into the case is a violation of the the bailment. But looking in a bag or a coat pocket isn’t quite the same thing, and probably not unlawful..
The practical answer here is that even if the restaurant isn’t supposed to search your property, you wouldn’t have much of a remedy if they did. Sure maybe you could sue them, but what would your damages be? (Answer: nothing)
The bottom line is if you don’t like it, you shouldn’t go to that restaurant, or you should refuse to check your property. The only practical barrier to restaurants doing this is that they don’t want to anger their customers. Also, why would a restaurant want to do that in the first place? They aren’t going to get away with stealing their customers’ property for very long, and it would probably hurt business even more if they started calling the police everytime they found a bag of pot in some college kid’s bag. It doesn’t make sense.