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.

This. Pubs are adult spaces as far as I'm concerned, especially nowadays when there is an abundance of cafes, family-friendly restaurants, soft play areas etc everywhere so parents have lots of options. 5pm onwards caters to people either leaving work or starting their night at the weekends-children should certainly not be in pubs after this time.

Not necessarily. Most villages don't have a McDs, and even if they did, I don't really fancy taking my in laws and DB/DSIL and their DC there for Sunday lunch.

I think you know what I mean

Your kids love going to the pub? Really? And maybe, just maybe, parents should expect to make changes to their lifestyles when they have children, they are not children for very long after all so it isn't exactly a long-term sacrifice.

I've literally been in a pub before where our party have been told to stop swearing because the table next door had kids on it. At gone 9pm on a Saturday night. There are so few adult spaces left-pubs, bars and clubs are closing in their thousands, it would be nice to be able to have a drink and - heaven forfend - say a swear word or two without being expected to censor for children who have no place being in pubs.

Oh my word i seen this recently - a buggy being pushed and the man pushing it drinking a can of cider, i actually starred at him was in such shock. Really has this become the norm? I am all for parents having a drink but wait till eve when they are in bed or something. Don't do it pushing a buggy on the foot path . Alcohol is not a necessity

Depends where you live.

Our soft play does for but it's hardly a place to get together with the grandparents and extended family.

No local cafes open post 3/4ish and certainly wouldn't be big enough to take a booking of say 8 for several courses over several hours. None would offer a carvery etc.
The restaurants are all in town so a nightmare with parking etc.

Taking kids to the pub isn't about entertaining them, as in soft play. It's often a chance to get one parent out of cooking whilst having decent food, meeting up with friends and family, celebrating etc.

Yabu. I hate seeing children in pubs at any time. Why can't we have some child-free spaces? It was so much better before the smoking ban (apart from the smoke of course!).

Exactly. For one thing, in Southern Europe if a child was misbehaving any adult in the vicinity would be welcome to chastise the child. In the UK you can't so much as look at someone else's child without being accused of causing them irreparable damage.

@SleepingStandingUp maybe some short-term sacrifices need to be made when you have children?

Why would anyone want to take a child in a pub? A garden is different, but having children inside a pub where a proportion of people will be drinking to excess, using language that most people wouldn't want their children using, just isn't appropriate.

Well I obviously agree that it’s a terrible decision as arguably parents of toddlers are the ones who desperately need a drink at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon. However, this is because I have said toddlers and I’m grateful for any establishment that caters to them. When they grow up I probably won’t want to go to a child friendly pub so I can see both sides here.

If anyone wants to stick a licensed bar in the middle of a soft play however, they will have my full support.

It so was.

Some of our friends spend their weekends in the pub with their kids in tow. Watching football etc. It’s absolutely grim and I have no idea how their kids tolerate it. Mine would be whinging about being bored after half an hour.

Sit the kids on the doorstep.
With a bottle of pop and bag of crisps.

I remember as a child we weren't allowed in the pub but had to hang out in the children's room playing arcade games etc whilst our parents sat in the bar. Occasionally they would come to see if we were ok. We thought it was fun, but today it would probably be classed as neglect!

Pubs aren't restaurants. It's not unreasonable to expect some of them to be adult-only spaces later in the day.

I have children, and if a pub is fully family friendly with kids area and family menu etc it can be lovely. However, I have many times been to ‘grown up’ pubs where families let small kids run riot while they drink themselves silly and don’t give a monkey’s that it is ruining everyone else’s experience and is annoying for the staff. I guess your pub is going for a ‘this is grown up time’ vibe, which they will only do/maintain if it works for their business.

I don't know how the UK became so anti-child, it's become quite a pathetic society.

Where necessary, yes.

But if a nice local pub provides colouring books, a playground and a children's menu, to facilitate parents who want to have a meal out with friends/family with their children in tow, then it's not unreasonable to take them up on the offer, rather than sacrifice your reasonable preference just because someone on MN disapproves and thinks you should stay home or eat at McDonalds for sixteen years.

It's not a human right to have access to Sunday lunch at the pub with your children, but neither is it a human right to have Sunday lunch in a completely childfree environment: each pub can choose how they want to play it and which segment of the population they'd prefer to disappoint.

I’m all for this. We had a meal out at a nice restaurant at 7pm last night. Most of the meal was ruined by what looked like a very young baby wailing constantly. There was no effort made by parents to remove baby/soothe baby/feed baby/change baby etc. We all had to endure it. In the end we binned having a dessert, just to leave and get some peace. Babies and young children do not need to be out in these places at 7pm. Honestly I’m sick of it.

i think 5pm is reasonable. I don’t really want kids hanging around when I am in the pub and I didn’t take my kids out with us when we were having a drink neither. We took them for meals in a pub but not for an outing when we wanted a couple of drinks.

Our local pub/restaurant wouldn't accept children under nine years of age. It worked for them. They don't do kids meals either

Ah yes the early 80s....I remember that.
Why are there protected characteristics e.g gender, age etc but kids are allowed to be excluded?
If adults behave in an uncouth way they shouldn't be out in public anyway.

I don't think it's being anti child to expect there to still be some adult only places where they can be free of children running around and not being supervised. It always used to be extremely rare for a pub to allow children inside and now things have gone to the other extreme. I suppose many pubs really struggled after the enforced smoking ban and the loss in custom, and making their premises more child friendly was the only way they could survive. But I can't see that it's ever necessary to take young children into a pub, let alone in the evening.

If you wouldn’t have a drink at soft play with your child there then you shouldn’t have a drink in a pub with them there.