Businesses saying keep the rowdy children at home.

[Kahuna Burger]

Because they don't go to coffee houses to listen to screaming kids. They aren't being served with the ambience that is one of the main reasons they go there. Denial of service is also discrimination.

*snicker* denial of ambiance. Thats a new one.

 

[der_kluge]

I thought discriminating was illegal.

Companies can refuse to take business from anyone if they so desire.

 

[Crothian]

Companies can refuse to take business from anyone if they so desire.

That's not true. I can't refuse people that are blue in color in a business I won.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

<soapbox>
I have two children (ages 7 and 3) and we take them to all sorts of restaurants. The most out-of-hand either has ever gotten is that the 3-year-old likes to go under the table from bench to bench when we sit at a booth. No yelling, no screaming, certainly no running around (though I've walked around a big restaurant with him to keep him entertained when the service was especially slow).

Either I have Stepford Children or people really need to get a handle on their kids.

</soapbox>

or you are looking at a spoiled antichild reaction that defines movement as "running around", and normal infant/toddler fussing as "screaming."

I did a lot of eating out and going places over my vacation, and I saw not one parent who didn't have a handle on their kids. The kids did things such as move or make noise, shocking as that may be, but I'm not buying the strawman thats supposedly being reacted to here.

 

[Teflon Billy]

...If you want your perfect child free environment, stay home. Out in the world, there are these other people, some have kids, some kids make noise, or move or otherwise make their existance known. Once in a long while, you run into someone who is truely rude, but most of this fuss is just people who can't stand to share...

Uh, no. Why should I stay home rather than those making the disturbance.

Check this out

This guy has staked his business on the notion that he is providing a service that people would like to patronize. One thatinvolves not having children around.

None of these parents or their supporters seems to be denying that kids can be pains in the ass. What they do seem to be denying is that they are not responsible for it in ay way

If a business owner doesn't want children around because his clients (or he) finds them annoying, then I see it as nothing different than banning smoking, banning ghetto blasters, or banning cell phones. If he is willing to take an economic hit (or just target his market elsewhere) then more power to him

It's his business. If the "Entitled Moms" don't wish to patronize his business anymore, then more power to them...it seems like a meeting of minds: they aren't welcome at his placeof business and they don't want to be there. Agreement.

But to say somehting like "..If you want your perfect child free environment, stay home. Out in the world, there are these other people, some have kids, some kids make noise, or move or otherwise make their existance known..."

Well, that's just ignorant. If you feel that it's somehow your right to inflct your difficult choices on the unwitting public (childrearing) then you are really, truly the selfish person in this equation.

There are amillion "Family restaurants" in North America.

Patronize those.

 

[RangerWickett]

Just think, people. Children and fat people are the only two groups we can still discriminate against, and at least fat people get to vote.

I say, universal suffrage! We'll let the children vote on whether they think this coffee shop owner is violating their civil rights. And then we'll elect Britney Spears as the next president of the United States, abolish all homework, and mandate sending all old people to Florida because they're stinky poo-poo heads.



The litmus test is, 'Are you being rude?' Letting your children be loud and irritating in a normal restaurant is rude. Letting them be loud and irritating in a family restaurant is fine.

Telling parents, "Please quiet your children down," is fine. If they then can't quiet their children down, asking them, "Could you please take your children outside? They're disrupting the other customers," is fine. Try to be polite, and maybe offer the kid a cookie or something to calm him down while the waiter puts the parents' food in a to-go box, but be clear that the restaurant is not a kid's place, and you would appreciate if they not bring their children anymore, unless they're better behaved.

On the other hand, telling parents, "God! Could you shut up your stupid kid? Why do people like you not use birth control?!" is a bit rude.

 

[Teflon Billy]

*snicker* denial of ambiance. Thats a new one.

You don't think Ambiance is a selling point at a restaurant?

 

[Crothian]

If a business owner doesn't want children around because his clients (or he) finds them annoying, then I see it as nothing different than banning smoking, banning ghetto blasters, or banning cell phones. If he is willing to take an economic hit (or just target his market elsewhere) then more power to him

Banning people and banning cell phones are way different. Children are a type of people. Now if he wants to make the establishment truely adult in nature he can and make it proivate, and serve alchohol and then kids won't be alloud in. But since that is obviously not the case, then he has to deal with the kids.

 

[RangerWickett]

No, Crothian, he doesn't.

The thing is, he's disciminating based on behavior, not on appearance, sex, or belief. I don't see that as a negative thing. I see it as responsibility.

I mean, it's not like there are only two types of businesses -- family and adult. There are gradients. Chuckee-Cheeze is different from a Chinese Buffet is different from Starbucks is different from Olive Garden is different from The Abbey (a $50 a person romantic restaurant in Atlanta). And all those are different from The Pink Pony (take a wild guess what kind of place that is).

In a perfect world, he wouldn't have to say it, but basically all he's doing is putting up a sign for the morons who don't realize, "Hey, the social norms of our culture indicate this restaurant is a place for mature relaxation, not for loud kids. Don't be surprised if, when you break the social contract, I ask you to leave."

 

[Crothian]

No, Crothian, he doesn't.

Yes he does.