Bar in York introduces a ‘shush’ policy to deter rowdy stag and hen dos

The landlord of a Yorkshire bar has found a simple way of stopping visits from boisterous stag and hen dos: telling everyone to stay quiet.

FortyFive Vinyl Café is inspired by a specific type of establishment found in the US city of Nashville.

Owner Ian Reid, 63, opened up the site in January last year after retiring from the world of banking without any prior experience of running a venue.

He said there are mainly two kinds of bars in Tennessee’s Music City – ‘honky-tonks’ and ‘listening rooms’.

The FortyFive Vinyl Café is a listening room, he explained, meaning it regularly hosts live performances… but not the kind where the crowd is on its feet and yelling out the words.

Ian said: ‘When we have events, it’s all ticketed. We don’t allow hen dos or stag dos. This is a listening room, so when the music’s playing, we ask the audience to be quiet and listen to it.

‘We don’t get that with hen and stag does. I have a shush policy.’

The bar, on York’s famous Micklegate, acts as a gastro-pub with booze, hot drinks and food by day before transforming into a live music venue by night.

Its policy is clearly set out for all customers in a sign which reads:

Some stag and hen dos have ventured into the bar in the past and they have been ‘fine’, Ian said, but more often he’s happy to see them pass by.

Hesaid: ‘We’re a café as well as a bar, we’re not like a pub so we don’t have people on the door.

‘We see some of the stuff going by and we think we don’t want them to come in, really.’

In 2022, York Central MP Rachael Maskell said the disruption from stag and hen parties meant they should be restricted to certain ‘zones’.

The idea, which Maskell argued would make the historic city safer for families to enjoy, was dismissed as impractical by the local council.

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