No children in pub after 5pm

[SweetSouls]

My local banned children after 7pm a few years ago.

This seemed unnecessary to me, but I suppose that's after 'bed time' so I could sort of see the logic. Adult time etc.

On Saturday I went to stop there for a drink in the afternoon, and they have now banned children after 5pm.

This seems very odd to me given it's an area that people move to with their families. It's not some town centre boozer, it's surrounded by housing.

Is this just not terrible business? I do not get it at all.

It was almost empty, incidentally, at 5.15 on a Saturday afternoon.

Absolutely their business, their choice. I got fed up as a single person (or even when I did have a DP, to find kids constantly either running around, babies crying, when I was there to have a drink/meal.

Last year, Christmas, same thing, parents there with babies/young children at a pub where we went in Crouch End, great for them to be able to take them there but not so much so if and when they cry/misbehave.

Parents also sometimes do or do not parent their kids in pubs, the amount of times I've had to listen to an ipad with sound on full blast, had kids running around nearly tripping up serving staff carrying hot food and drinks or listen to a baby crying, when they should have been taken out of the saloon or whatever bar it was in the pub. It doesn't make for an enjoyable or relaxing evening or even daytime event (but I appreciate weekend meals are nice for families) for me and my DP/friends/families.

In Southern Europe, often they don't have pubs, more bars.

If by Southern Europe you also encompass France, they have tabacs/bars, truck stops, which are mostly for men/women and definitely not children. Children can however, and are welcomed in most restaurants, but the French, generally expect good behaviour in return.

From my understanding inns/pubs/public houses are mostly for adults to drink in, not under 18s. I even recall a rule about you had to be 16 to be allowed to bought for you by an adult who was over 18. It was or is at the landlord's discretion whether to allow you entry and whether to serve you a drink, if you were under age or had had too much to drink, or were with a child, they could refuse entry or bar you.

My parents ran the gauntlet of trying to get us into pubs on holiday and a local one, and even then, it was mostly in the pub garden or in the games room, again at the landlord's discretion.

It's only been since 80s onwards (I I think?) that some but not all pubs have generally become more family friendly.

Seems responsible of the pub, to me.

Yes, it is!

It is a business decision. Our village pub ( no other amenities ) was taken over a few years back by owners who had previously run town pubs. They immediately banned children after 7pm. Quite a few people respectfully fedback, that this would mean they couldn’t frequent the pub as they had children of any age who could’ve be left alone and that on the rare occasions they got a babysitter they preferred to travel into town. But, we all recognised it was their decision to make. Within a month they changed their minds they had completely underestimated and misunderstood the demographic of the village! They had cut themselves off from a huge percentage of their business.

Absolutely!

They’ve probably had a look at their customer demographics and realised that lunchtime is full of families and evening is couples/ adult groups and that neither section of their customer base is particularly fond of the other.
Families and adult friend groups with their children in tow tend to take ages to get themselves packed up and gone after a meal so the staff have probably given themselves a bit of a buffer zone to clear up the mess and restock the bar before the evening starts. The lingering families probably haven’t been spending much by 5pm, just hanging out.

I was a pub licensee many years ago and back then (horrible!) split shifts were pretty common, if there isn’t much coming in through the til between 5-7pm the management likely want to cut down to minimal staff through that slot and have everyone back on for the evening rush.

If families stop the majority of their spending by 5 the business isn’t going to want to pay a full rota of staff through the quiet period just to supervise bored kids.

Computerised tills were already pretty sophisticated at customer analytics 25 years ago so I would imagine that by now, patterns of lulls in sales are even easier to spot. Probably sent straight through from till to office as a matter of course.

Margins of a profit in the bar/pub business are pretty wafer thin so if high volume alcohol sales on the smallest number of staff hours possible is what’s keeping your local afloat, they are obvs gonna prioritise that customer group over the ones who buy a meal but occupy a lot of space (compared to standing adults).

Don’t take it personally OP, I’m sure there is nothing wrong with your kids and your local doesn’t dislike families, they are likely just tightening their belt to keep the business afloat.

A friend owns a pub and they have a simple system to get around the parents who let their DC misbehave, the DP's are asked nicely to make them stop, if they don't then they don't get served again. It means the customers who parent their DC don't get penalized. They also serve minimal food so large family parties don't tend to go there

Personally I wish all pubs did this and adults could have some child free space.

My Mum and Dad went to the pub most saturday evenings in the village where we grew up, and we had to sit in the car or we could sit in the garden area if it was warm enough! Dad would regularly bring us out a small bottle of lemonade and bag of crisps or some foam shrimps.

Nowadays, few people actually parent their children and being around them is no pleasure for anyone except the indulgent parent.

Our local pub tried enticing parents with children to eat after lockdown. It all fell flat when the regulars changed their regular eating/drinking hole to a venue who who didn’t allow noisy, screaming, children with ineffectual parents on the premises.

Thank God I no longer have to suffer eating in a zoo at my local, where I don’t need to drive to, is all I can say.

Pubs are not the places for children. Find a suitable child free venue for your kids OP (there are plenty of places where children are allowed to run feral) and leave the pubs a place where adults can be child free. There is nothing more frustrating than anticipating a child free evening, having paid a babysitter to look after your kids, to have to put up with other peoples kids screaming, shouting, running around - and standing at your table, picking their nose 🤢 - when you are eating.

Try soft play. No child needs a bar and no bar needs a child

"If by Southern Europe you also encompass France, they have tabacs/bars, truck stops, which are mostly for men/women and definitely not children."

France is obviously not in southern Europe.
I accept that the places you mention are mainly not for children, but do they actually ban children? That's a different matter.

I'm on the continent and we have cafes where alcohol and non-alcoholic drinks are served. Children can be found in them quite often during the day. Obviously, they're not in city centre bars because those are night time places, mainly for youngsters. Also, events for children quite often have a bar for the adults.

Having had kids myself i can fully understand the issue of finding babysitters and wanting to go out (so having to take the kids with you). Trouble is i dont want your kids either, especially as i'm not even being paid to have them running around my table.

I agree, this is also a popular opinion with me.

This can't be officially approved because Wetherspoons won't even let dogs in their beer gardens - there is a big feature about this in the current edition of 'Wetherspoons News'.

https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/contact/faqs/pubs

We visited Edinburgh a few years back for a short mini break with our kids - they were 13years old atm. Big difference between Edinburgh and the South East - you’d think 13 year olds would be fine - we sat there in an restaurant, eating and drinking but at 9:00pm we had to leave - licence requirements. And that was one of the places with quite a liberal licence - maybe it’s changed now, but back then had we known when we booked we’d have visited somewhere else.

It might depend on their licence, there are certain conditions placed on them, as one of the key licensing requirements is 'the protection of children from harm'
(For example, mine states no children after 7pm.)
Might be worth checking it, as this will be displayed on the premises as a requirement.
Or it could just be a business model they prefer too!

Good we've turned round and walked put of pubs that have kids in.

And usually they are making a false comparison.

If you came to Britain and only ate in Nando's or Carluccio's, you'd probably think Britain was incredibly 'family friendly' too. So while children may be welcome in chain or family run restaurants in 'Southern Europe' I'm not sure a posh restaurant in Milan or Madrid would welcome your kids playing 'Baby Sharks' on a loop on their tablet while others want to enjoy their expensive dinner.

And while pubs aren't really a thing in 'Southern Europe', there are plenty of adult only bars where children will be no more welcome than they would in Britain. It's really just a cliche that everyone 'on the continent' loves having other people's bratty, sorry impeccably behaved, children running around in all circumstances.

It's not a great way to parent

I wish our local did this. Myself and a group of friends got ‘told off’ by a pub landlord as someone complained we were swearing near their children at 10pm. Sorry but don’t bring your kids to a pub in the evening if you don’t want to hear the odd swear word 😆

It really isn't. The kids will probably be knackered.

Unless of course, 'Southern European' children have some special gene which not only means they are impeccably behaved at all times, but that they can stay up until midnight bouncing with positive energy? And not being at all annoying to anyone else?

Sorry, is your example of your childhood supposed to be the example of good parenting from ages past?

Im not sure you’d be allowed to park your kids outside a pub alone while you had an evening inside nowadays..!

Kids have so many more spaces than they did before, ball parks, soft play, trampolines, nerf etc

They have their own cinema screenings, sports sessions -

Kids don’t need to be in the pub.

I wonder if part of this is simply that children are allowed to make more noises in pubs nowadays? Of course unruly children have always existed, but in (for example) 2010, no one would actually have brought a portable TV to a pub, plugged it in, and insisted that their child be allowed to watch it at full volume. Nowadays allow kids to watch/play on tablets in public without even wearing headphones because "it's the only thing that'll keep them in their seats". When you have continual beeping sounds from games competing with Peppa Pig, it all gets a bit noisy! Must be quite off-putting for childfree customers.

It comes down to noise for me but I do have misophonia. I like dogs but can't stand barking and when you get multiple dogs in who just bark their heads off at each other, i just want to leave the place because it goes right through me. A dog on their own tend to be lovely and quiet though, but I can't stand the barking.

Same with kids, if they're sat quietly then fantastic. Screeching, yelling and running around the place I can't be doing with.

It's hard enough to get peace and quiet these days (even just for a normal chat with a friend) between idiots on speaker phones, loud music blaring, TVs on loud. Everything is noise noise noise.