A restaurant in Pennsylvania has banned children under 6 from their restaurant because of noise complaints. I am curious to hear your thoughts. A FB friend of mine put this as her status and a very interesting debate has occured. There seem to be 2 families of thought:
It is discrimination
It is age discrimination for a restaurant to ban anybody because of their age. Everybody should be able to go everywhere all the time. If we allow this ban then it will only escalate to banning all kinds of people.
It is justified
A private restaurant has the right to decide to serve only people ages 7 + because of the type of people it wishes to serve. If people aren't coming to their restaurant because of screaming children, it is hurting business and they have the right to preserve it the way they see fit.
Personally, I could care less if a business chooses not to allow young children. If I have my kids, we just won't be going there for dinner. But if I want a nice romantic night with my spouse, that restaurant would rank quite higher on my list. It is one of those "If you don't like it - don't go there" kind of things.
Recently, we took our whole family to Applebee's for dinner. We sat in a corner booth for big parties and everybody behaved well. Unfortunately, a family of 3 was sitting at the table next to us, 2 parents and a 3 year old little girl. The girl kept twisting the rod to the blinds (that I was facing) so they would shoot open blasting me with sunlight and then shutting, putting us in darkness. After this happened 3 or 4 times, I was ready to complain to either the parents or our waiter. I was facing that window and the sun was shining directly in and it was very uncomfortable for me. My husband, calm and patient (darn him) told me I couldn't complain and just to let it go. Had the parents just gently admonished the child, we could have all eaten in peace. Instead, their dinner was ruined because she wouldn't sit down and be quiet and we were being strobe lighted. In this instance, a ban on children under a certain age would have been quite welcome : )
I think businesses have the right to cater to a certain crowd of people as long as it doesn't become discrimination. We as people also have the right to not eat somewhere if we don't agree with their practices. Being in an interracial marriage, there are some establishments my husband and I don't go to because we don't want to be in an uncomfortable situation. As a woman, there are places I am not going to go to eat like the Gentleman's Gold Club. I am not going to take my kids to Hooters because I don't feel like dealing with boobs. I realize those businesses haven't banned certain ages or people but they have set up their businesses to cater to a certain crowd and it keeps most other crowds out. This restaurant in PA has set up their restaurant to cater to a more upscale group of people and screaming children are not welcome.
What do you think? Do you think it is discrimination? Or do you feel it is a justified ban? Please voice your thoughts but keep it friendly.
Discrimination is banning anyone from participating in ant thing based dilettante on age, race, gender or religion while disregarding merit. Change 'children under 6' to 'black males' and you see my point. Why is it righ to ban one type of people over another? In this situation, it is the restaurants right to ask people to leave if they are bothering their other paying customers, but they can't make a broad generalization. Discrimination is discrimation.
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