Andy West brand parents 'idiots' and suggests children shouldn't be allowed in pubs. Thoughts?

[NicciJane]

I may be over reacting to this somewhat but I came across the below on Twitter and it really got my goat! Now obviously I was frequenting pubs late into the evening as a child but I was brought up having lovely family meals in pubs. We were always expected to behave etc and we certainly never ran around or approached the bar area.

Does anyone have any thoughts/ opinions?

@AndyWestTV
Oct 28
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Children do not belong in pubs. If you have children, do not go to the pub with them. Your children have no place in pubs. You made a choice to have kids = no pub. Accept your responsibility and get your child OUT of the pub. BAN KIDS FROM PUBS. Breathe.

I agree with him. Pubs are adult spaces. I'm sick of going to my local and finding kids on scooters, kids chasing each other and crawling babies on the floor

Doesn't he realise that pubs are closing down all over the place? A family going out to eat at a pub spends far more than a lone man sipping on a beer.

I agree to an extent. I have a child and work on a pub part time. Probably 80%of the time the children aren't supervised. It gets on the other customers tits, it gets on my tits as I trip over them trying to deliver food. There could be glass on the floor, they could get stood on. Bad idea all around.

I think it depends on the pub and it depends on the child. Some pubs are more family friendly than others but generally I wouldn’t take a child to our local quieter/non-food serving pubs in the evenings.

Well, most pubs are actively cultivating family meals, baby groups, and other children-oriented populations, so he loses.

Depends on the pub but a significant number of them would close down if that was the case. One of my locals is pretty much all family diners.

@SuperSange

I understand your frustration, and parents should certainly supervise children's behaviour in public spaces, but do you think that your job might be in jeopardy if there were no families coming in to eat and drink? Families spend a lot more than a single person or couple when eating and drinking.

Nearly all pubs round here are just restaurants with if you’re lucky, a very small bar area

I wouldn’t take my kids to a proper pub - we leave them at home now whilst we go

They’re teens before anyone calls SS and we only have one or two

Depends on the time, depends on the pub.

@BasicUsername ; not really; it's a hotel. I do take your point, but it's just not a child friendly environment, especially later in the evening. I've had to intervene when a customer swore(in conversation, not loudly) at the bar and the mother of a three year old complained about the language. At 9.30pm during the week. She was really quite drunk

I do think that kids probably shouldn't be in pubs past 8pm, to be fair.

My local has a large play area outside and a whole load of toys. We often have a drink in the beer garden with friends with kids of a weekend, but we're always out of there by 6pm.

I agree, children shouldn't be in pubs after 8pm, however, they should be welcome in pubs during the day especially those who have children's menus and play area's.
There will always be parents out there who allow their children to run amok whether its in a pub, a supermarket or any public place but its unfair to tar all parents with the same brush.

There's a pub local to me that doesn't allow children under 13 to visit. There are others that are not explicit about it but are just not "child friendly" so pre-teens are never in them. Others stipulate no under18s after 8pm. Others encourage parents and young children all day/night, with climbing frames etc in the beer garden. Others are notable sixth-form hangouts, where anyone over 25 and under 15 looks odd. Others are gimmicky and attract stag and hen parties.

They all have their place. Surely it's just a matter of finding a pub that suits.

And of course kids should be supervised, but that's true of any public building not just pubs.

They should only be welcome in family pubs, not all pubs.

Publicans should be able to set the tone of their premises, and over-18s only (which is a highly successful business model for many bars) is a perfectly valid choice.