Child Chaos - Kids and Pubs

The editorial of the Good Pub Guide 2009 highlighted an issue that is vexing an increasing number of people. Read what it has to say - and add your thoughts in the debate to the comments at the bottom.

Baby lager louts

Most pubs now allow children, many doing cut-price smaller food helpings for them. A great many readers really appreciate this, enjoying being able to go to the pub as a family treat. Occasionally, though, children don't behave decently, and this can spoil things for everyone else.

This year more readers than ever before have complained to us about pub visits being spoilt for them by badly behaved children running around unchecked. As one said: 'Far too many pubs let children run around playing near the bar like they are at play school.' Another: 'They completely spoil it for aficionados like myself who love "proper pubs"... I am sick of going into a pub and feeling I am at play school.' Another: 'No longer can one enjoy an adult evening without feeling that one is dining in a crèche.' As one pointed out: 'It's not the kids' fault, it's the b----y stupid parents who let their kids run riot in a place where hot food and drink is being served.' Another agreed: 'I find it very helpful to be able to take children to the pub on special occasions. The moment any of them cause a problem to adult drinkers we remove them from the pub without ceremony. Surely any problem is entirely the fault of ill-disciplined parents. I feel so sorry for hard-working landlords who have to deal with bad manners from parents who ought to know better. It is so often the parents who should be asked to leave!' But take care about that: one of our readers, a solicitor in his sixties, asked a doting father if there was any possibility of his keeping his obviously sick baby quiet - the father suggested that they resolved the matter outside!

This is a peculiarly British problem: in continental restaurants and cafés it's normal to see families with children, not normal to see kids spoil things for grown-ups. So we have considerable sympathy with the landlord of one charming Sussex pub who told us that he had decided it 'just didn't suit children', as he didn't want to do plates of chips or burgers and didn't want to have to look after customers' children while they had a meal and a few drinks. However, over 90% of the pubs in this Guide do allow children (an increase of about 10% in just the last four years). And there are plenty of pub-going families whose well behaved children cause no problem.

We confess that we can't see an easy solution. It's easy to say that we could start treating parents who let their children run riot with the disdain normally reserved for lager louts. But would that have any impact on people who think they are entitled to a thoroughly relaxed family day out? And you can imagine the retort when a publican asks a badly behaved family to quieten their children: 'We've just spent over 50 quid here, do you want us to leave without paying?'