Witherspoon’s 2 drink limit for parents

[Leaannb]

I just saw an article about Witherspoons deciding to impose a 2 drink limit with parents who have their children with them. How do you feel about this? Is this being unreasonable?

Great move, other similar establishments please copy!

Unsupervised kids running riot while the parents get bladdered doesn't JUST happen in Wetherspoons remember?

Child free people will/would flock to places where kids are not a nuisance. So it's win, win.

Excellent idea. The one and only time I ever went to a Wetherspoons it was full of kids running around and parents who simply did not care- whether they had had more than 2 alcoholic drinks I don’t know.

It's been a long time coming. Good move!

I don't think it's fair. I can go out and have 3 Gin and tonics in an afternoon whilst having a meal with my children. I'm not anywhere near drunk on that.

No need to have more than 2 drinks when you are out in the pub with the kids.

Hate kids in pubs in the evenings,

My DP and I only have soft drinks with meals anyway so it won't be an issue after our baby is born. I've never understood why people 'must' have an alcoholic drink with food.

Because a glass of wine/half a Guinness is nice. Nicer than a soft drink which is usually sweet and doesn't go with savoury food.

greggers A single measure of gin contains less than half the alcohol units of the average pint of beer, so that makes perfect sense. Perhaps make your first one a double!

Talking about the three G+Ts.... Well a friend went to Ireland for a few days and knew her limit was about the three mark.

BUT she didn't realise that the measures of spirits in Ireland are much higher than UK. She had no kids with her, just to mention, but she laughs about it now. She says she got up in the pub and did the Riverdance or some such LOL!

Just a bit of light relief, hope I am not derailing a good thread.

Oh well, it's back to leaving my kids in the car with crisps and a can of coke while I get drunk inside with daddy then

When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, we'd also stay in the car for hours with a Dr Peppers and crisps while Dad was in the pub.

Sometimes, pubs would have a 'children's room' where kids would watch TV/play pool, while the adults drank. I remember my uncle asking me to get him 20 cigarettes from the cigarette machine.

My dad would then drive us home after 6 pints 🙁

I like a drink as much as the next person, but would not have acted that way with my kids. I thought nothing of it as a child, but now wonder why it was seen as socially acceptable (or maybe it was just my family?) when it was irresponsible.

Thank goodness in Scotland children are not allowed in pubs ever

Bollocks. Have you even been to Scotland? It's perfectly normal for a pub to allow children when serving food. I'm half the country away from where I grew up and there are far more family-friendly pubs in all areas of Scotland than there ever were. I can remember serving meals to families with children in our local pub as a bar waitress in the 70s in a rural area. Often children would be restricted to the lounge with the bar for just drink, puggies and pool.

^www.gov.scot/publications/licensing-scotland-act-2005-section-142-guidance-licensing-boards-local-authorities/pages/12/^
Scottish Government
Riaghaltas na h-Alba
gov.scot
Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 section 142:
guidance for licensing boards and local authorities
Published: 16 Apr 2007
Directorate: Justice Directorate
241. The intention of the new legislation is to encourage licensed premises to become more child-friendly and to encourage an environment where families can socialise safely together. It replaces the old complicated system of children's certificates which allowed under-14s to enter a bar to eat a meal when accompanied by an adult between 11am and 8pm. Under the 2005 Act, the hours during which children will be permitted on a particular premises will be set out in the operating plan.

FIFTEEN years ago this legislation was passed and there are far fewer drink only pubs now in most towns, particularly in areas where there is some tourism, to say nothing of the proliferation of Harvesters etc in retail and leisure parks.

"She says she got up in the pub and did the Riverdance or some such LOL!"

Jesus Christ.

I think it was fairly common, HandsOff. My husband's parents weren't big drinkers by any stretch of the imagination, but seem to have done this as a given. My husband says he used to be quite happy sitting outside with his comic!

It's reasonable enough to expect customers who have children with them to be able to safely look after said children so they've started implimenting this rule.
Good on them.
I'm sure they've seen enough parents get too drunk who have then let their children run amok

I'm sure they've seen plenty of parents too drunk to look after their children, which has probably meant that somebody else has to step in.
Completely reasonable to start implementing this rule I think

TooManyPaws Have i ever been to Scotland ? Born, bred and still live in S.W Scotland, Father had his own pub for years. Here in Ayrshire children are not allowed in Bars that dont sell food.

lowland lucky

You obviously don't travel far then or know much about current licensing laws. Bylaws are another layer of legislation. Just because some local authorities ban outdoor drinking, doesn't mean that Scotland does so I find your extrapolation from your local area rather curious.

Mind you, there are only a very few, well-defined parts of Ayrshire that I would care to drink in, let alone take children into, and I'm a hard-bitten and ancient former Jenny whose seen the world.

FFS autocarrot who's, you degenerate illiterate.

@SharpieInThe

I don't think JC had anything to do with it! Do you need some pearls to clutch or something. It's called having a bit of fun and in many places in Ireland, having fun is actively encouraged.

Is it the same in UK do you think?

@HandsOffMyLangCleg I didn't think was okay in the 80s and I can remember talking to a work colleague who complained that her neighbour did this with her kids.

I think it's a good idea. X

I don't see the point of the rule. If parents want to drink they'll just go to the next pub with their children. Weatherspoons haven't done anything special or helped the children with parents who drink a lot.

I don't think they're trying to solve societal drunkenness though, they just don't want to allow this particular behaviour on their premises. That's their right.

This branch has obviously calculated that the revenue from parents wanting to have more than two drinks with their kids either isn't worth the hassle or is less than the revenue that people who are being deterred by that group would provide. Basically it's money, or possibly faff. Nothing wrong in that. It's the precise same logic used by pubs who make a decision to appeal to families because they judge their custom more valuable or desirable than drinkers wanting an adult only space. In both cases it's their right to make the commercial decision they judge most appropriate.

Thing that worries me is that parents might decide to get drunk at home and their money goes a lot further so they are even less able to look after their children then in a pub you might have other people, however reluctantly, stopping the children hurting themselves or running into roads or getting injured but at home there's no one.

It would indicate to me that they've had serious issues before with parents being drunk in charge of their kids. I dont blame them one bit for doing this. Why should the pub have to take responsibility for parents who are too trashed to look after their own kids. The pub is probably worried that something awful will happen. Good for them. Shame the actions of a few have ruined it for everyone else but I agree with Wetherspoons.

I went to a Wetherspoons with my friend for breakfast after dropping our children off at school (my one morning a week I have off work if anyone was judging). We were gobsmacked when two woman with tiny children with them came back from the bar with 2 bottles of blue wkd each. We are talking 9am on a weekday. Just why?