To find Telegraph Poll: 'Should London Cafes Become Child Free Venues' offensive and discriminatory?

[greengoose]

AIBU to think that this poll, where currently 43% think children should be banned from cafes, is discriminatory and would never be allowed to be written about any other section of our society?
The article and poll can be found here: TELEGRAPH POLL
In the comments bellow there is an 'anti child' rant suggesting children should be unwelcome everywhere from small shops (which should have a no buggy policy) to cafes and galleries).
This has made me spitting bullets TBH, I cant believe the 'anti child' culture in this country sometimes (and especially in the capitol IME), I do understand people should keep their kids under control in cafes, but to turn that discussion into a 'ban kids' poll is downright awful....... the telegraph, which I dont support anyway, should be utterly ashamed.

Lesley if you want to stand in the rain with a screaming baby go ahead but no way would I. A baby cries because it needs something and I will keep it dry and warm while I work out what it needs. Rain may put paid to a tantruming toddler though

Blimey Lesley, I'd never have thought of that. I can see why an establishment might think that you are a hen party, to be fair to them, but it can't be much fun for you to have to go through the discuss that no, honest, honest, we're not thing time after time.

The evil part of me would be inclined to say, "Actually, no, we're a group of lesbians", just to see them bluster! :o

Will the ban apply to all children up to the age of majority (18)?

I hope so, becasue I for one find groups of teenage girls in starbucks and the like far more noisy and disruptive than a young baby. They cannot talk without screaming and shouting even though they are right next to each other. I'm all for banning them

It isn't a ban. It's currently a proposal that premises should be empowered to ask tiresome people to leave.

I'm sure they already have that right anyway.

Ok, as a childless person here goes. I think it's up to individual business owners to decide where they want their clientele from - surely that's the wonder of the free market at work. There should be cafes for mums with buggies and places where I can go without being deafened/trodden on/run into by free range toddlers doing zoomies. The UK already has plenty of adult only hotels (Warner chain, for instance and nobody minds that). Similarly if you go somewhere like Centre Parcs in the middle of August it'll be full of families. I wouldn't go there then and complain about the children.

In practice anyway many places actually do have defined clientele - I work part time in a university and many of the cafes round it have a very student-centric approach, such as discounts for NUS holders. I don't see picket lines of mums at the doors complaining because this is discriminatory against non students. Similarly, I used to work on an industrial estate where the cafe catered mainly for workmen, served industrial strength tea, nothing that wasn't deep fried in lard, opened at 6.30 and was shut by 2. Any child there would have been an alien being, nearly as strange as a vitamin.

This is no different really than some pubs catering for a gay clientele, some catering for a biker crowd and some making their profits as gastro pubs - as long as people know what the business is about, then it's all good.

More generally, as others have pointed out, there is a very real safety issue in both cafes and restaurants when children run around and there are staff or customers carrying hot drinks or plates of hot foods - it's not fair on either staff or other customers, and can be positively dangerous for older folk or anyone with poor mobility.

Voice of reason ////\

The Cafe Nero I used got colonised by the buggy brigade and that used to cause major hassles with floor space taken up, crying noise etc to the extent that other customers started to complain loudly, and then go elsewhere - and the buggy mums would stay for a long time and consume very little Cafe Nero food and drink..

Don't know how they handled it, I went elsewhere too.... But many people (loudly) suggested they should have a no buggy policy!

It strikes me that whether or not she's borrowi g the language of rights movements, the OP actually objects to the idea of banning all children from cafes not because it's discriminating than because it's undiscriminating. If this hypothetical ban discriminated between annoying, ill-mannered children and pleasant, well-behaved ones then it would be more just, not less.

Ndrew I think you might have missed the bit where I said I don't have a problem with child free cafes when critiquing my post!

I loathe standing somewhere trying to work out we are welcome or not, then deciding I don't want to get it wrong adn ending up in yuckydonalds: signage that we are welcome (the flip side of not) would be +++++++ in my book!