Do you think 16 year olds should go to swanky cocktail bars?

[abigailsfs]

Some of my DS friends have started to go to cocktail bars and he wants to join. Not sure how I feel about it. Firstly, I want him to focus on GCSEs and not go out late and be too knackered to revise and then the other thing is I just feel it’s a bit too soon. A pub (despite them being underage) seems ok ish, but a cocktail bar just feels like something you do when you’re older. AIBU?

I'd be gutted if I went to a bar and it was full of 16 year old boys!

"popofyellow
I highly doubt that they are "swanky" cocktail bars, unless there's a secret portal into the world of Gossip Girl!!!

Where on earth do you live that you’ve never seen a swanky cocktail bar? Under a rock??! There are plenty"

@MaloneMeadow you misunderstood me. Of course there are swanky cocktail bars. My point was a cocktail bar that allows 16yo,s in is unlikely to be one of them...

And you made my point!

Ds is 15 and we took him with us to one at Christmas. We were doing a Xmas Market and fancied a cocktail afterwards - and yes, DS did have one (or 2).
Hes pretty tall and it was dark and being with his older sibling and parents I guess nobody questioned it
However, he wouldnt be allowed to go on his own and his friendship group are more likley to be playing Basketball in the park that going out drinking.
I used to regularly go out drinking at 16 but there werent so many of these cocktail bars then and also how the heck do kids afford them????

Sounds normal and age appropriate to me, I don't see cocktail bars as more grown up than pubs, perhaps a bit less sophisticated if anything. I don't see any reason that pub is OK but cocktail bar isn't.

The other question is what he's like with alcohol - not every teen drinks themselves into a stupor, most are capable of stopping when it's not fun anymore.

I don't see any reason that pub is OK but cocktail bar isn't Neither is OK for underage teens, obviously.

Tell him that even if he did get in - which is very unlikely unless he looks like Luke Littler - the adults there would snigger at 16-year-olds in a cocktail bar. He’d be very embarrassed.

But mostly, no, U-18s should not go to bars.

Maybe my teens are very unusual but I've not heard of kids that age going to pubs or bars. It's so expensive, and mostly places are superhot on ID checks now. I'd have thought underage drinking at house parties or hanging around the beach or park is much more common.

I certainly wouldn't be encouraging my 16 year old to use fake ID.

North... Iraq? :)

Key words - a lot, not all. When DD was still 17 and all of her friends had turned 18 already it was far easier for them to get into fancier cocktails bars with her rather than pubs or clubs which always religiously ID.

I was about to say the same thing. I had to read it twice!

I went to cocktail bars at that age. I don't think I would mind mine going to bars occasionally at 16 as long as they weren't getting drunk.
At 16 I had a part time job so could afford my own drinks.