All snide social commentary that skews towards the obvious racism that is often associated with them, it is a serious question: if a place has a dress code and nobody enforces it, what’s the point of having it in the first place?

Down in Florida, my famiry went to dinner at a supposed upscale steakhouse at one of the numerous Disney resorts.  While we were packing for the trip, I had full intentions of going full vacation mode as in packing basically nothing but shorts, t-shirts, and with the intention of wearing nothing on my feet other than my slides the whole time, but mythical wife informed me that we had reservations at a place where there was a dress code and that I should pack accordingly; as in a collared shirt, and jeans were acceptable as long as they were not ripped up. 

Only slightly begrudgingly because I do like fine dining and don’t mind cleaning up from time to time, I did pack accordingly.  But I did mention to my wife that I would wager money that we would probably see people there that were nowhere close to adhering to the dress code, be it people slumming it up or just samples of the various Florida white trash that exists in the state.

When we got to the restaurant, I was compliant to the dress code because I have respect and follow rules, but completely unsurprising, were all the people I could see inside and waiting outside of the restaurant, that most definitely were not.  In most cases, it was a bunch of Ben Afflecks who looked like they rolled right off one of Orlando’s countless golf courses, in their polo shirts, but their non-compliant khaki shorts, but there were no shortage of people slumming it up in t-shirts and modes of dress that would be better suited to a mall food court rather than an upscale resort steakhouse.

And not that I have any issues with gay guys, but there was one fabulous dude wearing a men’s denim romper, with red bandanna around his neck, as if he were deliberately trying to look like a male version of Rosie the Riveter.  All classifications aside, that wasn’t compliant to the dress code either, but that didn’t stop him from being able to get inside and dine as well.

Which brings me back to the original query, if they’re never enforced, why do places even bother advertising any sort of dress code?  At the end of the day it’s fairly meaningless to me, but as a person who can respect and adhere to simple rules, it always irks me when other people don’t.  It’s not at all difficult to do, and it makes me wonder why people don’t want to take a little pride and clean themselves up.  I’m not saying that people need to go all Harry and Lloyd, but is it really fatal to just try?

All this really makes me want, is to see a video montage of people getting turned away at restaurants for not being compliant to dress codes, but much like the disappointment I feel in person when I see those who don’t, the internet really is no different.  I can’t find any compilations, much less any decent individual videos of such humiliations occurring, and just a whole bunch of depressing and disappointing news articles of black people getting turned away at restaurants.

At this point, abolish them all, if they’re never going to be enforced and only being used to inappropriately weed out racism.