I found this article on Yahoo and found it interesting. Let me start by saying I don’t have children and I don’t want children. It isn’t often that I actually go out to a restaurant, but when I do I don’t want to hear brats screaming, see kids running around or come up to me and start playing 20 questions; when I go out to eat I want to relax! The fact is that most parents are afraid to discipline their children in a public forum…they fear that if they even tell their kid to sit down and shut up someone will call child services on them. This can result in restaurants losing money. (a restaurant is a business, businesses like to make money and turn a profit.) From a business stand point I can definitely understand the ban on children; customers will complain and even walk out if the atmosphere is not to their liking and someone ends up having to be the “bad guy” who has to ask the parents to quiet their kid down/control their child and no parent likes being told how to parent, so they may end up complaining to management and walking out on the check. From a personal stand point I think there are already too many businesses that cater to young kids and that it’s difficult to find something to do or someplace to go that is strictly for adults…minus porn, night clubs, bars and strip clubs. There aren’t many restaurants that cater mainly to grown folk, cruises have become family affairs…etc. I don’t have kids and I don’t want to have to put up with other people’s brats!
Let’s see…there’s McDonald’s with the play place, there’s Chuck E. Cheese and most casual dinning/fast food places have coloring pages, crayons and some even give the kids a “free” toy. If you want a kid friendly restaurant, then take your pick of the thousands of other kid friendly restaurants out there.
Then there’s the complaint many adults are making about the noise from the bar. You know there’s going to be a bar and you can deduce that the bar is going to be noisy. If you don’t want to hear the noise coming from the bar, then ask to be seated as far away from the bar as possible. Yes this means you might have to wait a while, but if you want to eat there and don’t want to hear all the noise it might be worth the wait. Or, I have a better idea. DON’T EAT AT THE FRIGGIN RESTAURANT WITH THE BAR!!!
The ban is completely legal. Here’s what a lot of people either don’t understand, or don’t remember: Businesses have the right to refuse service to anyone they see fit! If a business refuses to cater to people with small children, then that is the right of the business. Each business has its own clientele…each business has its own target market and demographic. If someone had a restaurant that was black tie and I walked in wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes and my pink halter top I would expect them to turn me away. There are areas of cruise ships where those over the age of 18 are not allowed, but no one complains about that. It’s not my fault these people just had to have kids, so I shouldn’t be punished for what they did. By this I mean, I should be able to go to a restaurant, go to a store, go on a vacation and NOT be bothered by screaming kids!
More and more companies are cracking down on minors being in their stores past a certain hour. I’m perfectly fine with that. After a certain time grownups want to go and relax and not have to deal with someone else’s unsupervised brat running around and bugging them. I wish more companies would place these bans, make parents responsible for their kids again, get parents to actually teach their kids how to act in public. Bring back actually doing stuff without kids. Kids shouldn’t be allowed in bars…that to me is inappropriate, but it happens. There are kid friendly places, now let’s make adult friendly places…other than adult only stores, strip clubs and night clubs. Those of you with children: Stop trying to muscle in one the things those of us without kids like to do. There’s a reason we go to certain places, because they cater to adults, stop trying to make every establishment kid friendly! Get a friggin babysitter! You don’t need to be with your kid 24/7. My parents left me with babysitters, they also taught me how to act in public and weren’t afraid to discipline me. I wasn’t allowed to run all over a restaurant be it The Olive Garden, McDonald’s or any other establishment, my parents didn’t take me into bars. I was taught that it’s rude to walk up to another person while they are eating and stare at them, or ask them a bunch of questions. If you don’t like the ban, then either go to the kid friendly establishments or teach your kids how to act in public. I would have no problem with places being kid friendly, IF kids sat with their families, ate their meal and didn’t scream!
For anyone interested in the article, you can find it here:
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