Earlier this evening, UK’s LGBT Labour group wrapped up their AGM and headed to the Greencoat Boy pub, near Westminster, where they had a booking.

On arrival, they were refused service by the manager.

According the the @LGBTLabour twitter account,

Reporting discrimination to the police in the Greencoat Boy pub

They didn’t take it sitting down and have contacted the police and three of them have been to the Charing Cross Police Station to give witness statements.

In the UK, homophobic discrimination in the provision of goods and services is a criminal matter. In Ireland, it’s a civil matter, which means that the complaint is taken through the Equality Tribunal or the District Courts (in the case of registered clubs and licensed premises).

The Greencoat Boy is owned by Punch Taverns who manage or lease over 7,000 pubs in the United Kingdom. There has been no official word from the company at this time.

Those of you on Twitter can follow the story by searching for the #LGBTLabour and #bigotbar hashtags.

Update: Poltical Scrapbook have spoken to Punch Tavern’s PR team and expect a statement today. We’ll have another update when the statement is released.

Update (6/6/2010): Punch Taverns, the management company behind The Greencoat Boy, has issued a statement. It reads, in full:

Punch Taverns seeks to provide open and welcoming venues to everyone. We are shocked and saddened that the Labour LGBT did not experience this at The Greencoat Boy last night and apologise unreservedly.

“Across our estate, diversity and inclusion are a core part of our ethics and are clearly referenced in our recruitment process, our equal opportunities policy and training. We would like to stress that this is an isolated incident; we have a good track record on equal opportunities and we do not tolerate homophobia in our pubs, whether from guests to other guests, or involving our employees.

“We are currently conducting a full investigation of the incident and the Deputy General Manager will not be on site until the investigation is concluded. We are co-operating fully with the police and plan to meet with the LGBT Labour Group early next week to discuss how we can work together to further improve our policies and procedures.

In addition, we have this morning contacted all of our general managers and pub teams to remind them of our equal opportunity policy and will seek to work with external partners to further enhance our training to ensure that inclusion remains at the heart of it.

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