Restaurant Bans Work?

[wordsmythe]

ABC News: Restaurant Takes On Rowdy Kids

By JOHN STOSSEL and CHRISTOPHER ST. JOHN

March 22, 2007 — Have you ever found yourself counting the seconds until your check arrives at a restaurant? Not because the food, service or ambience were lacking, but because someone's child was running laps around the place, hiding under the tables, and practicing his dinosaur roar at ear-splitting volume.

Or maybe you've been on the other side, out to a family meal with the kids, proud of their behavior — which in any other situation might be called exemplary — only to be berated by a fellow diner who believes that children "should be seen and not heard"?


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Either way, the moment probably doesn't rank among your top ten dining experiences. Whether they're well-behaved kids bored of waiting for their grilled cheese to arrive or poor-mannered brats hell-bent on ruining a meal for everyone within screaming distance, the friction created by kids in restaurants is something many of us have experienced.

In one Chicago community these tensions reached a boiling point when Dan McCauley, owner of a local cafe, A Taste of Heaven, decided he had had enough of children using his establishment as a playground.


Heaven and Hell

One afternoon, McCauley said, he caught a pair of kids scaling the walls of his restaurant while their parents sat nearby. As the group was leaving, McCauley confronted Julie, one of the supervising mothers, and told her that she and her children were no longer welcome in the cafe.

"I was so shocked," said Julie, who out of concern for the children's anonymity asked that her last name not be used. "It made me feel like I was in the second grade, having my knuckles whacked or something."


The following morning McCauley posted a sign on the front door, thinking it would be a simple solution. It read: "Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven"

To his astonishment, the sign quickly provoked a strong response within the community. "We had like 50 or 60 phone calls," McCauley said. "People stating that they were really offended, and they would never step foot in here again, which really surprised me." A local newspaper even wrote that a group of concerned parents was going to boycott the cafe.


Continued

[TexKan]

I for one would be happy to eat there! My lord....... imagine........ someone actually expecting YOU as a parent to teach your children how to behave!

[Bubba]

If I lived in Chicago, that you be my regular restaraunt. There is nothing that pisses me off more than unruly children. I could see if it was an establishment geared to kids like a Chuck E Cheese, but at a normal restaraunt parents need to keep their kids in check.

[Made in the USA]

You could count me as a customer!! My kids are raised and gone, and I don't wanna put up with rowdy kids anymore while I am trying to enjoy a meal! Just call me "old, cranky, worn-out, or whatever", but that's how I feel!! Besides that, kids cut into my "rowdiness and unruliness", I got enough competition!!

[BroncoFan]

Umm, Not to be an unruly child, but don't we need the government to make a law in order to ban children from resturants? We couldn't let resturants make their own choice with banning smoking, so why would this be different. I say we sue them!

[youngwhippersnapper]

The idea isn't to ban kids from restaraunts. But to promote better parenting. Or at the very least more attentive parenting.

I'm only 23 yrs old. Frankly If I go to a restaraunt and I see kids running around and their parents do absolutely nothing to stop them or calm them down, I get pissed.

I think this is sadly becoming a more and more common issue with parents of my general age group. Parenting has been so "regulated" by the government that discipline is almost impossible. When I was growing up, if I did anything like some of these children do in restaraunts or any public place for that matter my mother and father would have stopped bent me over their knee and spanked my butt. But, sadly something like that is liable to have a child taken away from a parent that is good.

I commend this restaraunt owner. If I owned a place of business myself, I would do the same. Shut them up and keep them next to you or get the hell out.

Young...Whipper...Snapper

[BroncoFan]

Frankly, I am not afraid to say something to the child/parent if I observe this in a resturant. It is a parenting issue, to an extent. Remember children that are well behaved and have good parents still act up. Don't be so anal about it.

[K C Muffin]

I remember growing up that eating in a restaurant was a fairly special occasion (there were 7 of us kids, so eating out was pretty expensive). If any one of us misbehaved, we could all be sure it would be a long time before we ate out again!! Another thing that's contributing to this problem is the unwillingness of the parent to make meals at home as punishment for these little brats. The kids know they'll go back the next nite because mom & dad don't want to/don't have time to cook at home.

[TigerEyes]

But... but...

If you restrict kids from doing their thing, their self esteems will be damaged and they'll grow up to be criminals!! We should let the kids have free reign in restaurants, libraries, and bookstores so they can grow up naturally!

[K C Muffin]

uh huh. I remember tanning my boys' hide a couple of times - and they ALWAYS behaved in public after that.