Err... no

He he. Okay, so it's just a quiet pub free from overly misbehaving kids (or arguably misbehaving parents who let their kids run riot) that you're after, Hilltop.

But my gripe is with the attitude of some who think that there's some sort of need for the type of 'adult pubs' that I describe, and in particular I'm annoyed local authorities using licencing to ban kids from pubs after a certain time (usually 9pm).

By banning kids in this way, they are encouraging excessive drinking and its associated problems rather than encouraging sensible drinking.

Well, I don't think anyone wants to sit round in a pub after necking a bottle of wine or two at 10 o'clock in the evening worrying about what they talk about and minding their Ps and Qs in case a child is hovering over your shoulder, Ooperlooper.

No, they can do that home.




Roz, always full of witty repartee and jest.

Mind you, it's an interesting idea - the use of minors placed at strategic points in order to discourage antisocial behaviour in adults: graffiti problems? Place a five-year-old on a street corner! Prostitution? Send a gaggle of kids into Soho! Gambling issues: bandage a child up and place him or her next to the video-roulette wheel in William Hill, a tear welling helpfully in its eye, bandaged arm thrust outwards - "Yes, you, mister, Mr Gambling man - instead of gambling, pay for my war-wounded arm to be set and saved!"

I think we're onto something here

How about adopting an evidence-based approach to this subject? Those who find themsleves outraged by the actions of children (or the inaction of their parents) should note on this board what has happened, where it has happened and when. Thus they will build up a picture of the watering holes at which they are most at risk and so make a better informed judgement about whether they can have a quiet lunch or not in any particular place at any particular time. It would also allow parents who take their children to the highlighted venues to take note (and choose either to exercise more rigorous control or, indeed, deliberately do the opposite). Anyway this might move us away from the rather random bile-throwing exercise this thread seems to have become.

spoilsport

Don't we all know the pubs where the kids mostly are? I'm not sure compiling a dossier will help

"But my gripe is with the attitude of some who think that there's some sort of need for the type of 'adult pubs' that I describe, and in particular I'm annoyed local authorities using licencing to ban kids from pubs after a certain time (usually 9pm)."

Isn't in the interests of the children not to be kept in pubs after 9pm?
I don't quite understand the basis for your objection.
Also children have playgrounds - and so adults also need an adult only space after a certain time in the evening. I don't see anything wrong with that. Why would you want your child to be sat in a pub at 10pm anyway?

I'd want to be sat in a pub at 10pm because a) I like sitting in pubs with friends, b) I often don't get home until 7pm or later (so a 9pm watershed makes it such a short session that it's not worth it), c) a lot of my friends have babies and toddlers, and... d) why shouldn't we be able to go into a pub for a bit of socialising if we want to?

I reckon it's good for kids to get used to seeing other people and to learn how to behave in such a setting. We don't always want to eat out - sometimes it's nice just to go for a drink.

I'm not saying that all pubs have to be family oriented.

Why not make it standard practice for pubs licences to allow kids in after 9pm and let a) each pub decide what sort of market they want to try to attract (i.e. some could specialise in the 'adult' market and some in the 'family' market, and b) let parents decide which pubs to take kids into (or not, if they don't want to)?

I think it would be good for society as a whole to discourage excessive drinking and encourage a more 'continental', sensible, family oriented style of socialising/eating/drinking out.

I also think we should scrap VAT on food and drink sold in restaurants. I think I'm right in saying that we don't have VAT on food sold in supermarkets, so why have it on restaurant food? Scrapping the VAT would encourage more people to go our eating and drinking, rather than just drinking, as a setting for socialising.

Doesn't seem particularly fair on the children. What about the bedtimes of older children who aren't simply going to fall asleep in a pram? Haven't we already established they get bored and fractious after a certain amount of time spent in a pub, which from a child's point of view is not the most exciting place to be. Sat around while adults socialise with each other.

I know times have changed and parents want a bit of freedom too but calling for licencing laws to be relaxed to allow small children in the pub until very late seems more about what suits the parents and their social lives than what is good for 'society' as a whole.

I just don't get the use of the continental drinking argument. I am French and I keep hearing about how in France, Spain etc Children are behaved in restaurants and bars. In my experience children get taken out on very limited occasions and people will not go out drinking with friends and bring their children with them. Children learn about the family oriented style socialising/eating/drinking in family celebrations only: weddings, Christmas, family parties, family holiday etc. My parents have never taken me out to a bar and my family in France with children now would not take children in bars at all let alone pass their bedtime. This is not really culturally acceptable in France. I have only seen people drinking in bars with toddlers in this country. Now that does not meant that French people do not socialise through drinking. The culture of the aperitif is of course very strong: "aperitif" is drinking with friends before a main meal and takes place in the house not a bar. You invite friends and family over and drink for a few hours before either sharing a meal or everyone going to their own home to have a main meal. Therefore drinking is not associated with getting drunk and the fact that a meal follows with stop all that binge drinking culture. Children learn during aperitif that they have to leave the adults alone and usually will go an play in their bedroom or the garden.

Do we know where there are pubs with children actually causing problems though? Recent local examples much appreciated.

Ghis - I generally didn't take my kids into French bars, as I tended to lose them in the smoke fugg (even more that in England pre july). Be interesting to see how it has changed.

TJ, there is no doubt a magic formula, and a PhD thesis on this. I imagine a critical mass of kids is around 15% - well below what I witnessed in a pub in the Derwent valley today, and hence not overun

No, you don't understand. Everything must be sacrificed on the altar of family-friendliness. If someone with kids wants something, they must have it!

Absolute hogwash. All you're doing is placing children around problem drinking. The presence of children doesn't somehow magic problem drinking out of existence.

The suggestion that "We have a bad drinking culture and all these places that have a good one allow children in their bars" is self-serving, naive nonsense, I'm afraid.

Much as I hate to rejoin this rather polarised debate where we don't seem to be achieving anything other than alienating each other (which some people seem to be keen to do), I'd like to point out that I believe that you have it the wrong way around Baboonery.

I am not suggesting (nor are others seriously, I don't think) that placing children in a place removes the problem drinking. The problem is that there should be a distinction in the first place between places that children should and should not go into.

I am not a fan of the game (so excuse me if some of this is simplistic and inaccurate), but let me attempt to move this away from one emotive subject (alcohol) to another (football).

Do you think kids should not go to football matches? Once upon a time, the terraces were places where anyone could go. But as the issue with 'problem' fans grew and fights could break out, fewer families went. The result was the creation of fenced off areas for 'problem' fans to separate and try and make the other areas safer, which of course concentrated the trouble makers and made the chances of trouble at the game even greater.

The solution was to deal specifically with the trouble makers, and remind fans that games are for everyone to enjoy. As more and more kids, and even families, started to attend, the total level of trouble has diminished.

OK, so a simplistic analogy, but others who are more familiar with football will hopefully see parallels.

You do NOT deal with problem drinkers by creating little ghettos where they can escape to and 'anything goes'. You remind people that alcohol needs to be treated with respect, and you encourage the younger generation to do the same.

This is not the same thing as saying that kids *should* go to the pub, nor that they should be allowed to run riot if they are there. Those are separate issues (which I tried to allude to by saying it is as much a problem in parks, buses, restaurants, shops, etc.). Do not confuse parenting issues with a still-socially-ingrained habit of 'escaping' to places where alcohol is consumed to excess.

There are lots of good reasons children should not go to pubs, particularly in the evening, but "because it is a place where adults can go to drink to excess and do not want to be interrupted" is nowhere near the top of the list.

... and just to finish, one of the reasons I feel strongly about this is that I work in the business of marketing and selling alcohol to consumers. Of course I'd sell more (in the short term) if you were all drunkards and got sloshed every night, but the alcohol trade is awake to the issues of problem drinking in this country and we want to make sure it continues to be available and does not get regulated out of existence. Prohibition anyone?

When a poll was conducted across several countries of the world, the UK stood out by being the country where the number one reason for drinking alcohol was "to get drunk".

Maybe a good place to start would be to ask ourselves that same question.

Cart massively before horse, there. The arrogance of crediting the fa-mi-ly with the improvement in the security environment round football is astonishing. Except it isn't, because it's right in train with the usual pro-fa-mi-ly tripe. I'm only surprised that middle-class parents haven't cured cancer yet.

And I've not said that "being a place where adults can drink to excess and not be interrupted" is a good reason for having child-free pubs." "Being a place where people can go without having their ears screamed off by people with the mind-blowing arrogance to believe that their little darlings can't possibly be annoying" would be a better one. I don't like drunks being rowdy in pubs. The management should control them if they are. They usually do. I don't like children being unruly in pubs. Their parents should control them if they are. They usually don't.

You'd be alarmed if I loved your kids as much as you do. So don't be surprised if what you see as a "charming little foible" in a voice you spend the entire day tuning out is highly annoying to me. Please.

One last attempt.

1. I didn't say that families had improved security at games. I said that improving security by targeting trouble-makers rather than coralling them into separate areas had allowed families back. With a generally less antagonistic environment, overall trouble had decreased.

2. Once again, you are confusing the issue of bad parenting and the need for adult-only drinking establishments. The point is that the latter only fuels the problem with alcohol in this country that most contributors here want to see the end of. Maybe your solution to rowdy drinkers could be applied to rowdy kids/families. Maybe parents who cannot control their kids should be dealt with by "the management" (in fact I would guess they are).

In this way, I repeat, pubs are no different to any other public place, and by the same token should also not be places well behaved kids should be excluded from.

3. I don't tune out my daughter's voice (with or without foibles). Instead, I listen to her and talk to her. Instead of ignoring her and therefore encouraging her to raise her voice to attract attention, she now feels part of the conversation and is very well behaved in pubs and other public places.

Now, I (and others by the way) have already accepted your point about bad parents / annoying children and the rights of anyone (childless or otherwise) to be able to have some degree of privacy from loud noises of any kind (and that should include annoying laughing/shouting/arguing adults as well as children).

Would you do the same for those who think that social places like the pub are for the whole community and not just adult drinkers, and that maybe (just maybe and no stronger) that by making them proper family places where BOTH adults and children are encouraged to act responsibly around alcohol, we might take a small step forward to making Britain a happier and healthier place to live?

Good for you. No, really, not sarcastic, good for you. I do worry that it's a bit like how all motorists say "I'd say I was a good driver, but there are SO MANY BAD DRIVERS OUT THERE!!!". But I bet there are lots of occasions on which your daughter does something that other people find annoying that you don't even notice. Really.

Well, I don't think you have, actually. In fac,t you quite evidently haven't.

I've no objection to well-behaved children in pubs. It's just that they are vastly outnumbered by annoying children, and parents who will do nothing about them. I don't think that by portraying the pub as a dreary netherworld unless one lets kids in does anyone any favours, to be honest. Anyway, I think you're right that this is done to death now.

I find I have to ask the question. Whilst in a pub and having observed children behaving badly have you ever had a word with the parents about the behavior?