Posted on 10/31/2017 8:37:02 PM PDT by Simon Green
Last week, a sign went up. It caused a lot of other stuff to go down.
Hampton Station, a neighborhood craft beer and pizza spot in Seminole Heights put the notice up on Oct. 24, on the front door in fat all-caps.
NO CHILDREN.
It’s a local piece of a national conversation. As American breweries and bars become increasingly welcome to families, with laid back atmospheres, food, games and grassy knolls, should business owners be able to draw the line?
In Tampa Bay, it didn’t take long for diners to take sides: The "this is an outrage" side, and the "it’s their prerogative, and I’m happy there’s someplace I can eat kid-free" side. A Tampa Bay Moms’ Group Facebook page quickly had more than 150 comments, discourse becoming more acrimonious as the number grew.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
And they put salami on their Cuban sandwiches.
and a time before that when they could buy their dads six-pack and cigs and get to spend some of the change
It is their restaurant, they can do as they want.
But pizza, families and kids kind of go together. I wonder if this is a wise business decision.
Wrong sign. How about NO BAD PARENTS.
Psst, parents with young ankle biters, there’s a Chuck E. Cheese in almost every town. All the chaos and bad pizza your little ones love.
I would be on the thank-goodness-I-can-enjoy-my-dinner-in-peace side.
but its fine...they can do what they want...
perhaps they'll be a time when smelly grumpy incontinent old people will be barred...
I think businesses can and should be able to determine who they serve. Sadly our government does not.
They will be the ones picketing outside but asking to use the restroom.
I don’t blame any restaurant or bar banning kids. I wish more would.
I think that parent in the last few decades have gotten very lazy in their efforts to control their children in public.
On vacation last month my wife and I had dinner at a fairly upscale restaurant that was a golf course club house but open to the general public. Two couples with four children 7 and under by my guess ate at an adjacent table (they had three tables pushed together).
They allowed their children to run through the restaurant and make a huge mess which they left for the wait staff to clean up. I told my wife that they should have left a huge tip. But I doubt that they did.
The kids were cute and looked well cared for but there is no excuse for allowing your children to display such behavior in a public place (other than McDonalds play palace).
And there is no excuse for parents permitting their children to make such a mess and then leaving such a mess for others to clean up.
No, I think that banning children after such behavior is a good idea. If parents do not control their children why should they be surprised when they are not welcome.
I have been to one once when my kids were little. I will never go back.
MY wife wanted me to go when one of the grand kids was going to have a party there. I said flatly that I would not go. She went without me and was very angry with me.
She got over it.
“Grassy knolls?”
Eh, I like their pizza. The atmosphere does need an upgrade.
I am fond of children (until they turn 14 or so lol) and don’t think anyone should expect to go have pizza somewhere and not have to see one. It’s different from a fancier, romantic dinner kind of place. Kids are people too.
I’m very close to my oldest grandchild because I’ve always made time for him. Can’t do that so much anymore but he’s in the friends/video game stage anyways. I had a good time simply by watching him enjoy himself, getting sticky kisses and enthusiastic hugs. Guess I’m one of those mushy grandma’s. (A young one mind you :)
You sound a lot like my wife. A doting grandma.
“watching him enjoy himself” at home where he bothers no one else to bother and the mess is his to take care of when he is done is fine. But when he is in a restaurant with other patrons that are paying for the privilege to be there and being molested by another’s unruly child is not something that they came there for is another matter.
Children need to be able to explore and learn about their world from time to time in a free and unfettered way. But those times need to be at home or at a relative’s home (grandma’s) and when they are done they need to be responsible for the cleanup so that they learn to be responsible for their actions.
When my kids were small, we took them there. Great place to let them loose for an hour or two, particularly in the winter. When they are worn out, take them home.
The food was adequate, but you don’t go for the food, you go to wear out the rug rats.
The children were loud and obnoxious.
The adults were rude. A few were drunk.
Maybe you went at a particular time of day when the people were different or maybe I was there when there was an especially bad crowd but I have no reason to go back so I won’t.
If the pizza was tolerable I might give it a second chance but I can think of no reason to go just watch children simulate the society depicted in the novel “The Lord of the Flies” since I will not eat while I am there.
And given my choice I would not take my grandchildren there and possibly give them the notion that such behavior is acceptable.
I don’t like to sound so negative on a place that you seem to find Okay but it was a bad experience and I have read and heard of some who have had experiences that were worse than mine and even where some even ended in group brawls. Police involved with assault charges.
Say what? I would think that borderline blasphemous in Tampa.
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