The latest Park Slope mother-child issue is a new policy at Union Hall that is said to bar mothers with toddlers and older children. The word comes via a Union Hall employee that says the bar and popular hangout has been having issues with minors being sent in as bait by the police without ID. They have apparently been threatened with closure if anyone under 21 is found on the premises. (Actually minors are legally okay if they are with a parent or guardian.) Infants are still allowed, but any kids that are old enough to walk are out as are strollers because of “fire codes.” The story originated with the Park Slope Parents email list but has also made its way to the Park Slope Forum on Brooklynian, where a poster writes:
For parents that hang out at Union Hall.–Strollers and children who are able to walk are no longer allowed in. This is causing a little bit of a tizzy among some parents in the slope who are invoking some kind of . Personally, why in god’s name do you want to take your kid to a bar? Please, I love to take a break from mine.
Stay tuned for further updates, protests, corrections and/or reactions to Union Hall’s toddler and stroller policy.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Jan 24, 2008 at 4:44 pm
good! someone needs to put those annoying entitled white momies and their equally misbehaving spawn in check. id like to see some restaurants and coffee shops apply this policy as well.
2 Anonymous // Jan 24, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I was nervous the yuppie mommy mafia was going to turn this bar into a cess pool like Tea Lounge! Making this policy is genius. I prefer my bars not to smell like baby diapers.
3 Anonymous // Jan 25, 2008 at 7:12 am
its a shit bar of course but it sure beats the liberal yuppie scum and their moms killing my buzz when im drinking my makers mark.
4 Whitey // Jan 25, 2008 at 8:31 am
White Mommies? First of all, learn to spell, you ignorant ass. Second, you are obviously an idiot, and a racist to boot. Go back to wherever you are from and leave the humans in peace.
5 abrooklynlife // Jan 25, 2008 at 9:10 am
So, would it actually be illegal for them to bar minors in a parent’s custody?
6 Anonymous // Jan 25, 2008 at 1:57 pm
OK, so Park Slope is overrun by mommies and babies and dogs and strollers and general upper middle class white horribleness… no surprise there. So why do all these complainers move there? It’s PARK SLOPE, what do you expect?!
7 Anonymous // Jan 25, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Just apply an once of common sense. Hard projectiles flying, multiple doors, and staircases and distracted socializing drinking parents all lead to a huge safety and legal liability for the bar. Then add a labrynth of over sized strollers and you have a disaster waiting to happen. Don’t feel bad mommies, feel happy that this place would rather be safe then sorry.
8 jsjunta // Jan 25, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I’ll stand behind Union Hall’s policy, as long as they also enforce mandatory sterility of all their other patrons, because I don’t want to hear them complain they can’t go somewhere with their children when these frat/hipster bocce boys end up having children in 10 years.
9 Anonymous // Jan 26, 2008 at 10:18 am
Hey, the bottom line as I see it is:
Kids simply don’t belong in bars.
When I was a kid, my dad was a pretty severe alcoholic. Probably still would be if it didn’t already kill him, but that’s another story.
I would go to work with him on Saturdays (he was a handyman who did odd-jobs on the weekends– this was our ‘hanging out’ time), and we always started and ended each day at the bar.
Though I got really good at pinball and could down a Shirley Temple with the best of ’em, I hated being there. I hated seeing my dad get drunk, I hated then having to be driven home by him, I hated being the Kid in the Bar that everyone felt sorry for.
I hate seeing kids at bars. Bring them somewhere they can play. Save happy hour for strictly adult times.
10 Matt // Jan 27, 2008 at 8:04 am
nobody is saying that you can no longer go to bars once you have children, all we’re saying is don’t bring the damn kids with you. I know its hard to find a babysitter, but a bar is just not at all a healthy enviroment for a child.
11 Anonymous // Jan 27, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I was recently at Tea Lounge and watched as a toddler tried to climb up to a foosball table that’s toward the back. The kid’s father was in line for food, and apparently not watching at all while his kid struggled to get on top of a stool. For a moment it looked like he was going to topple over and do some serious damage, and I looked around and saw that I wasn’t the only one watching this with a sense of dread. I put my book away and was about to get up to prevent the kid from hurting himself, but he fell onto his butt before I made it. Luckily he wasn’t hurt, and didn’t cry. But the point is that none of us should have been in that position–not the toddler who could have seriously hurt himself, the parent who could’ve had a serious problem on his hands, or the other patrons in the establishment who were put in the delicate position of deciding whether to watch this accident unfold or face the potential consequences of parenting someone else’s child. I understand that a lot of people in the Slope have young children, and they’d like a place to go with them, but it’s a little unfair to treat places like Union Hall or Tea Lounge as your personal living rooms, where you can have a drink while the kids run around. It’s also a little dangerous–imagine if that toddler had been in a place like Union Hall, where there are stairs to fall down and potentially buzzed people to contend with. I’m glad that Union Hall is putting safety first.
12 Anonymous // Jan 28, 2008 at 8:19 am
I’m a parent of two (infant and toddler) – and I fully support the Union Hall decision.
When I’m with my kids, I’m about as happy as one can be – but when I’m out for a drink with friends, it’s adult time.
Kids don’t belong in bars.
‘Nuff said.
13 Anonymous // Jan 29, 2008 at 9:28 am
its the white yuppie couples/parents that moved to Park Slope in the least few years that should realize that they are the new folk trying to make park slope into their own version of the UES. Park Slope was called Dyke Slope for a long time b/c like the west village or the UWS in the 1970s when those neghborhoods were run down and NOT chic or trendy the gay men and women had the guts to live there fight for preservation and accept the wonders of a multiracial enviromrnt. But once they gays help push out drug dealers and invest in their own neighborhood then some white RE agents show up from Manhattan with some slick proesentations to convince the white yuppies who wer priced out of UES and UWS in 2000+ that its the new hot thing—and the banks with back then ever flowing $$ for mortgages…well what happens now to park slope well alot of these Wall Street daddies get laid off and the financial services biz shrinks in NYC for probably a long time as many of those jobs go away permenantly?
Bars better wake up to betting to hard on the yuppie parents….they will drop going out and spending coin when daady loses his job.
14 Anonymous // Jan 29, 2008 at 9:29 am
its the white yuppie couples/parents that moved to Park Slope in the least few years that should realize that they are the new folk trying to make park slope into their own version of the UES. Park Slope was called Dyke Slope for a long time b/c like the west village or the UWS in the 1970s when those neghborhoods were run down and NOT chic or trendy the gay men and women had the guts to live there fight for preservation and accept the wonders of a multiracial enviromrnt. But once they gays help push out drug dealers and invest in their own neighborhood then some white RE agents show up from Manhattan with some slick proesentations to convince the white yuppies who wer priced out of UES and UWS in 2000+ that its the new hot thing—and the banks with back then ever flowing $$ for mortgages…well what happens now to park slope well alot of these Wall Street daddies get laid off and the financial services biz shrinks in NYC for probably a long time as many of those jobs go away permenantly?
Bars better wake up to betting to hard on the yuppie parents….they will drop going out and spending coin when daady loses his job.