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Locals have hit back at a UK bar's new rule, denouncing it as "freaky". Alibi, a cocktail and karaoke bar near Altrincham Market, Greater Manchester, does not permit entry to single drinkers after 9pm, and those meeting friends inside cannot enter solo. Instead, whoever they are seeing will need to come and collect them at the entrance. This is for the "safety of all guests".

Owner Carl Peters said in a clip on Instagram: "If someone is on their own, it means that they're not with someone else. So if something happens to them in a late night, busy bar environment, where people are drinking, it's an absolute nightmare for us to deal with." He added: "It also happens to be the case that sometimes if you let people in on their own, their reason why they're on their own is that they've got no-one to talk to, so they start mithering other groups."

Mr Peters said this is because "they're not just going to sit there in a bar having a drink on their own in silence".

He added: "That's when things start to happen and people are like 'who's this person on their own annoying us?'

"So, what we do as a venue is we just eliminate that. Unless you're with a group and we know who you're with, then you're not coming in."

Nicola Slawson, author of Single: Living a Complete Life on Your Own Terms, told the Metro: "I'm really shocked, it feels like another way to penalise single people and make them out to be something weird or freaky."

Sara Scott, a solo travel blogger, told the newspaper that Mr Peters is "making a huge assumption about why single people take themselves out for a drink, blaming an entire group of people for the actions of a few".

She presumed that he has "dealt with a lot more problem customers who entered his bar in groups than he has with single customers".

Simon Hickson said on Facebook: "That's the last time I go to Alibi."

Nick Burke wrote: "I sometimes go out alone, [and] wouldn't be harassing others... there are many other people I know who like Karaoke who would possibly want to go in there alone, so to turn them away is losing takings... a bit silly if you ask me..."

Rachel Louise called the policy "bonkers", also emphasising that there is an "epidemic" of loneliness and suicide, which is the biggest killer of men under 50.