This business of bringing kids into pubs
 

Are you for or against it?

Don’t ever bring kids round mine if I ever end up owning a pub., let’s just say that. You’ll be instantly barred.

Only on date night.

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2 of my kids are in their twenties so yeah its fine

I've taken mine in if we are eating and where we used to live I would sometimes take him in on a Sunday afternoon if I was meeting friends with other kids but they had a bouncy castle in the beer garden and big games for the kids. Would never take him in a pub on an evening out drinking though (at least not until he's old enough to buy my drinks:laugh:)

I was in an old mens pub a few weeks back, not been in a pub that was just a pub in ages, anyhow apart from being one of two women in there which was great as all the old boys were bowing and scraping as I went to the bar while Mr C sat on his ass :laugh: an asian man brought his little boy in he was about 4, he sat on his bar stool and had a bag of tayto and a coke and was no bother and all the old boys were saying good lad and stuff, would be different if he was running around and being annoying I suppose

ps this was on a Sunday afternoon, big shout out to Buckleys Bar in Harrow :love:

And, hey, bouncy-castles are low-key a vibe, whatever age you are.

I saw a 3/4-year-old eating trampled on Pringles off the floor last Saturday. Bloody disgusting. Bringing annoying kids like that in isn’t even worth it. No matter how cute they’re supposed to be.

there is a big difference between a spit and sawdust pub and an eatery that happens to sell drinks

I'm old enough to remember when spit and sawdust was the norm, and there is no way you would take a kid in there :laugh:

During the day, yes


After 7pm..NO. unless it's the world cup.

I'm for it, but cap them off at eight pints.

I hate kids in the pub full-stop.

I wouldn't mind taking a kid into Wetherspoons due to the Restaurant element to it.

But not a traditional Pub that can be very rowdy.

Why?

Probably because people take their kids to pubs and ignore their behaviour and expect everyone to be happy with them running riot ~ pubs are not playgrounds ~ so go kid friendly places or have a drink in your garden and leave pubs for people who wanna get away from the maniac hyper misbehaved and unrepremanded offspring .

Because the general public can be problematic enough when it’s just adults. Kids (not that I was ever that kind of irritating kid) are doubly annoying, they make even more mess and generally just spoil the pub vibe. So much in life has to be censored for children’s sakes (we’ve always got to think of them) so I’d let pubs cater to people who are a bit more age-appropriate. Fair enough when they’re 10+ but I wouldn’t be bringing hyperactive kids in their single digits to a place where people want to get drunk just because I can’t get a babysitter. Maybe every other Sunday afternoon or around Christmas but people trying to enjoy a meal and a pint/bottle of wine don’t want screaming kids running amuck. You might think it’s laughable to get that annoyed by literally little kids but it’s because they’re little kids in the first place drinking in predominantly adult establishments that makes the whole thing so jarring and annoying.

If it serves food then yes, obviously, if eating but otherwise no. Also when "food serving time" ends (usually about 9/10pm) then it's time for the kids to go home.

It shouldn't really be an issue, pubs don't start getting too lairy until later in the evening anyway.

No issue with it, parents have manic lives and are entitled to still socialise every now and then or unwind with a drink. Obviously all depends on factors like the time of day, kids age, type of pub etc but generally I've never found it a big issue. You get more objectionable adults in pubs than any kids

Some of my favourite childhood memories are of playing in the pub garden on a long summers evening :love:

Yeah these are my thoughts too, obviously not for hours while the parents get totally hammered but within reason i don't see anything wrong with it. I remember going to the pub every Sunday with my mom, brothers and grandparents, just for a couple of hours but we always looked forward to our razza and crisps :laugh:

Ones that serve food like weatherspoons yeah fine but maybe not after around 8.30pm. Pub Pubs, like drinking pubs, no I wouldnt take my kids to

Ultimately it's the establishment's choice though; they are licensed premises (they serve alcohol) so it's not a fully "public space" where the owners don't get a choice -- you CAN make any pub 18+ and enforce that. The pub I frequented as a teenager, ironically, was an 18+ only pub (even though half the people there getting hammered were 16/17 ... simpler times back then). But yeah, TECHNICALLY kids weren't allowed.

My sister was a bar manager of a small (island community) hotel for several years, the bar there also served food but had a 10pm "cut off" for kids, so most of the day it was a family bar/food place and then from 10pm - 2am it was drunken rowdy fishermen and sheep farmers :joker:.

Sooo ultimately, if a pub allows under 18's... you just sort of have to accept that. They can make the choice and they know they have the right to make the choice so if you don't like being somewhere that kids are around, you can make the choice to find somewhere that better fits your needs. They do still exist.

Would also say that anywhere that relies on serving meals as a major part of their business will not really be financially viable for long if they don't allow families. Though I have seen plenty of places that get around this by having a separate room for dining families and a more traditional "drinking pub" section in another room.

It's actually law here that children under 15 have to be out of Pubs by 9pm.

Everyone’s entitled to a social life (and by every now and again I presume you mean every weekend or multiple times a week for at least the slight majority of people when money’s not an object, because otherwise what the hell?) but pubs aren’t third-grade nurseries, nor is it particularly appropriate for kids to be where alcohol and drunkards are. A pub garden’s okay if they have the space.

I haven’t got a problem with teenagers who happen not to be 18 yet coming in. 16-year-olds were allowed to buy their own cigarettes until late 2007 (you only had to be 16 back then, not 18+) and generally teenagers were afforded more rights and space to make their own decisions. We like to baby and infantilise teenagers these days (no wonder they don’t seem to grow up as fast as millenial/early zennial teenagers and prior) but ultimately a teenager’s a teenager, not a 6-year-old. And contrarily Wetherspoons sometimes put a cap-slice on people under 21 coming in and staying on Friday/Saturday nights. 18 is a VERY arbitrary age.