pub chain limits drinks for parents..

[Teuch]

Wetherspoons

Now, I don't live within a 200 mile radius of a Wetherspoons but it somehow reeks of Big Brother or at least intolerance of families...

Spokesman said it's because they don't have play areas which seems reasonable-ish.

But if your pub is not suitable for children then HAVE A NO CHILDREN POLICY. If it is suitable for children then DON'T REFUSE TO SERVE THEIR PARENTS. It's not rocket science. Otherwise you just annoy everyone.

Serving meals to families but not letting them drink a reasonable amount is just barmy. I often get through more than two soft drinks when at a restaurant with DS (restaurants also not noted for having play areas, yet somehow they manage to serve me a third ginger beer without the establishment tumbling to the ground or a riot breaking out).

Of largely academic interest to me, admittedly, as I don't much like Weatherspoons.

Weatherspoons are usually quite rough, though, aren't they? At least, the ones I've known are.

Ooh, yet another reason to hate and despise Weatherspoons (though the nearest one to me has been handy now and again for rushing in to use the loo with DS in tow).
WHile I understand that some pubs are childfree and that, parents or not, nearly all adults like to go somewhere now and again where there won't be any kids screaming or running around or interrupting, I also don;t think there's anything wrong about going to a pub with, say, a big beer garden and chilling out for a while with your mates and assorted DC. But Weatherspoons, despite being miserably rough pubs full of knobends, are always trying to make life even more miserable for their punters (No music! Eww! No laughing in herre, we haven;t got a laughing licence, polite smiling only).

OFFS - This just confirms my view that they're bunch of tossers twits.

I have only ever been in a weatherspoons twice with a child, both times I've felt like some kind of criminal and both times have been in Soho because they're the only pub in the area that do let children in.

I once went into the one in our old town and when we were told that we'd have to go back out of the front entrance and round the road to the rear entrance in order to get to the family dining area, I replied that he could stick it up his bottom.

I'd rather go to Macdonalds than Weatherspoons (and as our kids have never been to macdonalds before it's saying something)

If you serve food and drink, you must expect that people will want to go out as a family.

My DW, my DCs and I were turned away at the door of the so-called gastropub the White Swan on Fetter Lane with the very rude and abrupt shout from the bar "NO CHILDREN!".

Four times I have been invited there by colleagues and clients and each time I have insisted on changing the venue. You either care for your customers all of the time or you don't bother at all.

I will now also refuse to go into Wetherspoons, with or without children. Well done, John Hutson - you have just alienated a large proportion of your customer base.

of course, all the beer gardens are now fag gardens, so there's going to be precious few places for any of us to go for lunch with our kids soon.

well wetherspoons here used to be for alcoholic drinkers in the day and under age drinkers at night my dd2 was served in there at 15 at night and got so drunk she didnt come home

i called the police at 2 am as i was sio worried

the last her firends had seen her was in wtherspoons

the police eventually found her at 9.30 am sleeping in ther managers falt above the bar

i complained about the under age drinking to the police and they shruggerd it off saying it was hard for bar staff to tell which was also wetherspoons atitude

i have never been in ine since

Only ever been in a Wetherspoons once.
Took my DSs there for lunch, about two years ago.
Despite the place being virtually empty, we were told that we could only sit in "the family area".
Which was dark, cramped and next to the toilets.
And right next to the smoking area!
Needless to say, we left without purchasing anything.

Wetherspoons have a very specific business plan, around cheap drinks and food but v high turnover. I guess they have identified that per head, parents are not economically worth it - especially as they probably deter the more lucrative pint drinking 'vertical drinkers' who don't want children in the environment.

In Brixton the Wetherspoons pub banned dominoes, as the traditional habit of older caribbean gentlemen enjoying a few games over a long-sipped pint wasn't economic for them, either!

I wouldnt take my children to the local Wetherspoons in the evening on a weekend as it is full of lager louts but now I wont be taking them when it is quiet either. I can understand them saying no children after 9.00 in the evening as the clientele they attract is not suitable company for MY children

We generally wouldnt have more than a couple of drinks with our meal but we take some travel games & colouring bits and the children thoroughly enjoy it. How are children expected to learn to behave responsibly in these places unless they are allowed to go there prior to their first visit in their teens when they get legless with their mates?

We wanted to go out a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday evening and really struggled for anywhere to take the children amazing how many recommend a gastro pub websites there are and how few tell you where you can take your children for a nice meal.

How rude is the Wetherspoons spokesman, when talking about the family in question; "the only people they need to look at is themselves"

WTF

well from this thread and the other one the main conclusion i draw is the one i had already that wetherspoons are yuk places with yuk managment and yuk food

yates are in financial difficulty i think since the no smoking the one here has closed down and become a tapas restaurant

i expect wetherpoons will go the same way

the wetherspoons had applied for a smoking canopy over the street but hopelfully that got turned down as would have been en eyesore and bad enough walking through a load ofpeople smoking without more encouragment

So children aren't good enough for Wetherspoons at 8 say, but ten years later they're welcome to drink 15 pints of Stella and fall down unconscious or spew outside (nice).

I think I'd rather sit there with a bunch of 8-yr olds. Most of the ones I know are very well-behaved and know how to talk to adults. unlike the average 18-yr old lager lout out on a bender.

Not had chance to read the whole thread so forgive me if I'm repeating an already made point.

I agree with Weatherspoons. At the end of the day it is a pub serving a licenced drug and as such is an 'Adult Space' (Sorry, that's a Surestart idea). Apart from meals, kids really shouldn't be there.

I have taken DS to Weatherspoons, I even BFed in there. I don't drink if I'm on duty as a rule and never in public unless I'm having alcohol with food.

Before having Ds DH and I used to go out a lot. Some Sunday tea times we would pop to the pub (not Weatherspoons)with mates. I always remember that on most occasions there was a young boy (under 5) who's parents had been in since, maybe lunchtime, moving from room to room looking for someone to be with. Dad was with his mates and Mum was always the worse for drink. It was heartbreaking to witness and I was annoyed with the parents for their attitude and the pub for tolerating it

It just has to be handled with a degree of common sense on both sides. We don't want to be treated like a child just for having a kid but parents have to have a degree of CS too really.

I have to say If you want to get sloshed and ignore your kid, get a sitter, please.

I hate Wetherspoons, don't go often (will go even less now, like never!) but last time we were there they were so rude - we sat about one table away from the child-safe area, and they made us move - DH was at the bar, so I had to move a toddler who at that time was into running off all the time, a two-month old, and 4 winter coats, on my own - of course noone offered to me.

Surely it's up to parents to decide how long they want to grace somewhere with their presence?

After our last experience at a Wetherspoons, I would actually rather go anywhere else, they are dives.....

Agree with grouchyoscar. Used to go to our local wethers often when I was a student, and always used to see young couples with several bored and whining small children in tow geting pissed with their tracksuit clad mates, ignoring their kids in favour of the fruit machines etc.

I think that if this rule stops that happening then it's a good one.

Surely most responsible parents going to a pub with children would be there for a meal, or to let them play in a pubs play area? It's only my opinion but I think you forfeit the right to drink more than one alcoholic beverage when in your childs company anyway. The least they deserve is a sober guardian, if people want to spend the day in a pub drinking, their children should be looked after elsewhere.

And santa, don't get me started on having to walk through clouds of cigarette smoke everytime I walk past a pub- the selfish sods don't even have the decency to hold their breath for a few meagre seconds or blow the smoke away from you when you walk past them with a tiny baby.

greatest decision ever. no more kids in pubs should be a universal law.