A viral Twitter thread has exposed the uncomfortable realities of going on a night out when you're disabled.
Lucy Webster, a digital journalist, went on a night out in London and found that, rather than being a pleasant experience, her evening as a wheelchair user turned out to be a "bumpy ride".
Lucy detailed how her night started out relatively well, with a bar providing good drinks and an accessible loo despite a "woman keeps talking to me about god and some sort of cure".
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However, when her group decided to go to a club, it all took a turn for the worse.
Lucy was not allowed into the Aquum club in Clapham, with a bouncer telling her "we can't let you in in your chair".
She initially wondered if the lift was broken, but it seemed that the staff just didn't want to let her in. Lucy shared her unpleasant experience on Twitter, writing:
"This is where it starts to get odd. The bouncer informs me that the physical access is fine, but the club is busy and he just wants to "keep me safe". I'm used to busy,. I say, I live in London, and anyway, I can look after myself. They're still letting other people in.
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"Then @Aquum bouncer number 2 gets involved. She tells me the music is "too rowdy" for me, as if as a disabled woman I can only listen to girly pop and, presumably, very sad songs. I feel my discrimination hackles raise. I ask if she's seriously saying this to me. She is.
"Let me just say that again. @Aquum wouldn't let me in in my wheelchair because they decided the music wasn't suitable for me. It is 2019.
"Cue some back and forth. I deployed the discrimination word. This led to the bizarre suggestion that I could go in alone, sans pals, to "see for myself" that it was unsuitable, and the more bizarre suggestion that it wasn't discrimination because wheelchair users are often let in."
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Lucy finally decided that if the club didn't want her money, she wasn't giving them her time, and went to KFC, where she found herself to be a "magnet for drunk people", with people pointing and laughing at her. She tweeted: "A man asks if he can spin my chair. I am done. I shed some tears in the taxi. I eat a lot of chicken."
After the awful night out, one of Lucy's colleagues reached out to the club, and was told they "have offered an apology and are going to retrain their third-party staff".
The story was received with shock on Twitter, with users commenting that the club's treatment of Lucy was "an utter disgrace" and asking if "wheelchair users are only let in when Barbie Girl is playing?"
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Let's hope this club - and all other clubs - do better, so that wheelchair users can enjoy their nights out without having to worry about discrimination and humiliation.
Featured Image Credit: Twitter