I don't think that's right, under New York law. McKinney's Civil Rights Law ยง 40A states that "place of public accommodation, resort or amusement ... shall be deemed to include ... retail stores and establishments," among a very long list of other places. And the same would likely be true in other states, such as Massachusetts, Minnesota, or New Jersey; if a parade, a Rotary Club, or the Boy Scouts is a place of public accommodations, I'd think that a retail store (whether it sells books or something else) would be the same. In any event, in New York one can't use the definition of "public accommodation" (at least if that's a state law test, as opposed to some hitherto undefined essence-of-place-of-public-accommodation definition) to distinguish bookstores from skating rinks.
Paul Finkelman writes: > Bookstore would not be a "public accommodation" the way a > skating rink might be _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
