Thursday 25 April 2024

Suffer the little children

The subject of children in pubs never fails to spark controversy, and there was an outbreak last week when the image shown above was widely shared on social media. Perhaps surprisingly, some of the strongest objections to this came from what might be called the “Christian Right”, with one commentator on Twitter stating: “Good luck with funding your pensions and finding someone to look after you when you're old and ill. Not sure that Fido is going to be much use then.” However, it should be pointed out that the birth rate was a lot higher in the days when children were not allowed in pubs.

Historically, under-14s were not allowed in the bars of pubs, although they could be admitted to restaurants and to physically separate “family rooms”. This was frequently ignored, but it did generally apply, and gave rise to the familiar memories of children being expected to sit outside in the car with a bottle of pop and a bag of crisps. It was undermined by the rise of dining pubs, which blurred the boundary between bar and restaurant, and in the early 1990s was abolished, leaving the admission of children up to licensees’ discretion. It should be noted that a different system applies in Scotland, where pubs and bars have to get specific permission to admit children in their licensing conditions, which is often refused for wet-led establishments.

Now, children are admitted to pretty much every food-serving pub, although a minority do require that they should actually be eating a meal. However, with wet-led pubs, the picture is more mixed, with some admitting children, but others not. Yet some people seem to raise an objection if they ever come across a pub that does not welcome their offspring. This comment on Twitter sums up the sense of entitlement of a certain category of customer, often to be found in craft bars.

If you take your children for a meal in a pub, they are going there for a specific reason in which they can participate. However, to take them into a wet-led pub while you enjoy a drink is essentially putting yourself first and expecting them to put up with it for a while. Children spend much of their time tagging along with adult activities, but surely it is best to spend leisure time with them doing something in which they can be involved.

The advocates for children in pubs with give examples of caring, involved parents taking their children for a quick drink at the end of a shopping trip or country walk. But that is a rose-tinted view that fails to reflect the spectrum of human nature. All too often, adults are immersed in their own conversation and leave their children to their own devices. Bored, fractious children will inevitably start to behave in a manner that other customers find irritating. This is not their fault; it is that of their parents. Children are also often given electronic tablets to entertain themselves, but I really don’t want to have to sit in a pub listening to Peppa Pig videos or the bleeping of computer games.

The point is sometimes made that adults often engage in far worse behaviour than children in pubs. That is true, but it is generally recognised as being out of order and dealt with, whereas it can be very hard to draw the line with the natural exuberant behaviour of children. If licensees to raise an objection, they are likely to find themselves branded as a monster on Mumsnet. So it is hardly surprising that many, who are running pubs targeted at adult drinkers, take the view that it is much simpler to exclude children entirely rather than having to deal with them on a case-by-case basis.

I carried out a Twitter poll on the admission of children to pubs, which received an impressive 619 votes. Nearly 70% of respondents preferred the “mixed economy” solution of some pubs being child-friendly and others adults only, thereby obviously stating that they felt it was entirely legitimate for some pubs to exclude children.

The sign draws a comparison with dogs. Obviously the issues surrounding dogs in pubs are different from those relating to children, although it’s worth pointing out that dogs will often happily sit quietly under tables, which cannot be said of children. I ran a similar poll on the admission of dogs. Again the “mixed economy” solution was the most popular, but it should be noted that 26% of people thought dogs should be admitted to all pubs, compared with only 12% for children. I would say it’s considerably easier to find a dog-free pub than a child-free one, at least in urban areas. In particular, Wetherspoon’s never admit dogs. On the other hand, most rural pubs would struggle if they excluded dogs, as Alex Polizzi pointed out in an episode of The Hotel Inspector. All Sam Smith’s pubs exclude dogs (apart, of course, from assistance dogs) and they only admit children if dining, which means that any wet-led ones are adults-only.

On a related topic, I always wonder why there isn’t the same clamour to admit children to betting shops, a comparable situation of an adults-only activity where they remain strictly excluded by law. And I can’t help thinking there’s another area of human behaviour where a similar “mixed economy” approach might be beneficial to the pub trade ;-)

31 comments:

  1. There is no room for discrimination in pubs. Pubs are for everyone of every age. It ought to be illegal to discriminate against children. It is the responsibility of the landlord to run an orderly house, if they are incapable of this they are in the wrong game. To deny a child the right to enter a pub is to deny them their own humanity.

    Animals are a different matter, having no innate human rights. Dogs and cats should no more be in pubs than rats or livestock. A pub is free to provide a barn customers can leash up their animals in.

    Kein Kind ist illegal !

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    Replies
    1. I take it you'll be equally keen to have kids in betting shops, then :P

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    2. If an establishment is unfit for a child it is unfit for a human being. Betting shops ought to be prohibited for the good of all humanity, including children.

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    3. Get to the back of the bus!

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    4. Absolute rubbish.
      Children need and deserve a childhood. That is utterly distinct from adulthood and they must. - absolutely must - not be seen as just little adults.
      You argument fails utterly if you consider
      1- Sex shops. Surely you don’t want children there?
      2- Casinos. Would you want to start a gambling habit?
      Children should be welcome only in pubs where the landlord has decided
      1. To serve meals suitable for children’s tastes
      2. To provide a safe play area, with equipment, and observable from certain seats designated as such inside, and is the designated ‘running, swinging, sliding jumping area’. Children and their guardians must be evicted and barred if such running around happens inside. Immediately so if around hot food and drink.

      I simply cannot understand ‘Rosa’s’ view, except to presume ‘she’ is one of those parents who sits, oblivious to the loud, obnoxious, behaviour of ‘her’ offspring, whilst loudly braying ‘cackling’ at their antics. Abdicating all responsibility. But resorting to the law as soon as the entirely predictable accident occurs.

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    5. Rosa is a troll - Google her name.

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  2. I fucking hate kids in pubs. Worst thing that ever happened to the British pub.

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  3. I fear that Rosa Parks & Pub Veteran would not get on very well with each other if they ever found themselves in the same premises ...

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    1. Maybe I should ban pseudonymous comments. But we'd miss a lot of fun.

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  4. Professor Pie-Tin25 April 2024 at 14:51

    Yes to dogs all the time.
    And yes to kids if they're eating.If not, no.
    I want to feel free to make a rather lewd joke about herring rollmops as a bar snack as I did yesterday.
    It's that simple really.

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  5. I live in a small town in rural West Yorkshire (Ilkley). We have a Wetherspoons which allows children but not dogs. Then most of the other pubs allow dogs but not children. I can think of two dining pubs in town that allow both children and dogs. Seems like its a business decision and that Sir Tim is in a minority in this town.

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  6. I wonder how many of the people saying "no kids in pubs !!" actually have children ?

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    Replies
    1. There are loads of pubs that welcome children. So why do some parents feel aggrieved if they can't take their children into every single pub in the land?

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    2. I do. Just not badly behaved ones…
      And I take full responsibility for them, and don’t sit there looking bit less whilst they run riot.
      And you?

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    3. Entitlement perhaps.
      Oscar

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  7. I was never taken to pubs as a minor on a regular basis. Can count how many times I was in a pub before the age of 18 plus on my two hands.

    Personally an establishment like the Harbour bar in Bray should have the bar for adults or parents of teenagers preferably 15-17 years old and the lounge for everyone though in the example of the Harbour bar the male lounge toilets would have to be recommissioned.
    Oscar

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  8. I have been a witness to a pair of entitled parents trying to bring a buggy in to my local a traditional drink led pub bar a few takers of sandwiches or minerals, two Christmas eves ago.

    The pub in question is quite small, longer than wider in its layout and you can not swing a cat inside never mind bring a buggy in. When reviewing reviews of the pub a woman complained about not being allowed to take their buggy inside and having to leave. Despite there being signs explicitly saying no buggies at the two entrances and just before the bar.
    Oscar

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  9. An excellent post as usual and I highly commend you using the term "children" rather than the ghastly "kids".

    Agree a mixed economy works, and yes let's have smoking rooms back where licensees want them (it will never happen).

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  10. I've no objection to pubs only serving a narrow niche of customers rather than a broad wider community.

    Though pubs should really shut up about being valuable community resources when the bulk of the community are not welcome in them,

    And when that pub goes tits up, don't blame a community for not supporting it when the bulk of said community have never been welcome in it.

    Run a business however you like and live or die by whether you can find enough custom for your business model. Celebrate your success and don't winge at the rest of us or the government if your pub fails miserably. Every pub is operating under the same rules and conditions.

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    Replies
    1. And the doggies?

      I'd say children actively deter many customers in wet-led pubs such as the late lamented Railway, so excluding them is a pragmatic business decision.

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    2. Don't care about mangy cat and dogs any more than I care about other peoples children, Mudge lad.

      If I go in a pub that has noisy kids or animals, it's not for me. I wear nice clobber and don't want dog hair, fleas or bubble gum on it.

      When my sister asks me to help her kids with their homework (Kid got 96% after her last bit of Cookie tutoring) and I take them to the track to learn about accumulators then wetherspoons to learn about bang per buck they go back to school with a taste for fruit cider and an appreciation of the practical use of mental arithmetic.

      Believe the children are the future, Mudge.

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    3. Smoking ban is the real cause for them failing.
      As you well know…

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  11. Not sure the betting shop comparison really holds up: would you take a date to the bookies? Or your mum on Mothers' Day? Pubs are essentially social places in way that Ladbrokes et al aren't.

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    Replies
    1. Yes.
      Adult social spaces. At the landlord’s sole discretion, of course…

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  12. I absolutely detest having children in pubs, particularly after 7pm at night, accompanying parents who have been drinking all day.

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  13. Professor Pie-Tim27 April 2024 at 20:12

    London Pride was on tonight so I thought I'd do the sparkler test.
    One pint with.
    One without.
    Absolutely no difference in taste but the creamy head made it a better drinking experience. It just felt like a nicer pint with a decent head and lacings.
    Either way I did four pints and at my age there are very few beers around where I can manage half a gallon these days .
    I'll sleep well tonight in between getting up for a piss several times.

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  14. I do think regional differences play a part - especially in terms of what ends up on social media and Mumsnet. When I lived in East London, there were several pubs around Victoria Park where a mass influx of kids and dogs at the weekend was very irritating, and caused the odd argument. But then the capital doesn't do 'mixed' pubs that well in general.

    In Leicestershire, on the other hand, Everards' pubs show you can have mixed ages as standard without much issue. The only time in 8 years I can recall seeing an argument about children was in a GBG pub (non-Everards) in Leicester city centre. The member of staff was very quick off the mark in having the child removed, in a way that came over as a bit aggressive. Several of us were slightly taken a back, but then remembered we hadn't seen anyone bring a child in before and didn't even know there was a rule.

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  15. It's worth remembering that children are also being bought drinks, snacks etc., and when we were involved with a pub, the garden was the (legal) place for them, and the profit margins on soft drinks and crisps were pretty good as well, so nobody really bothered back then!

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  16. I wouldn't take my kids to the pub, even though they're impeccably behaved as it, as you say, it's not fair on them. To be fair to children though, I've never stood in kids "mess" in a beer garden, but had a stressful evening tiptoeing round the dog turd in the badly-lit beer garden of the Grange in Cardiff.

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  17. Bloke with a beer and a book30 September 2024 at 16:34

    No dogs or kids would be my preference. No need for either

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