WHOEVER first said that all publicity is good publicity clearly had not envisaged the case of Jersey’s Havana Club, which is currently hitting the headlines thanks to its policy of refusing entry to women it considers to be overweight.

The incident which brought the policy to light – during which two women were told to go away by doormen and the Havana’s owner, Martin Sayers – might have raised the club’s profile locally, nationally and even internationally, but it also lifted the lid on discriminatory behaviour that many are finding deeply distasteful or even utterly repellent.

To be fair to Mr Sayers, he has overturned his policy, apologised to the women he barred and explained that in spite of the policy’s manifest potential to hurt feelings, he did not mean it to cause offence. None of this, however, has prevented 1,300 people signing up to an internet campaign calling for the club to be boycotted. Nor is it likely to stop a public protest scheduled for Friday night.

In many respects, of course, the Havana Club saga is a typical ‘silly season’ story for the national press, whose news editors have seized on it with their customary eagerness – not least because it chimes with the mistaken but widely held belief that this Island is a bastion of archaic values and practices. But this does not mean that the incident or its aftermath can be dismissed as trivial.

The feelings of the women who were insulted directly when they were refused entry to the club are of importance. So, too, are those of the many other people who will have been insulted by implication. But of paramount significance is the way in which it draws attention to the whole spectrum of discrimination and the drive to expunge it from modern society.

To this end, the Island now is in the process of enacting an anti-discrimination law. And although it has been envisaged that this will protect the infringement of individuals’ rights on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, race, age or religion, it can be taken as read that discrimination because of size or stature will also be beyond the pale.

Mr Sayers has already repudiated a policy that was quite clearly unacceptable and hurtful. In future, such about-turns should not be necessary because such policies will simply not be tolerated.