We found this rant about parents in bars and strollers interesting not so much for the subject matter–God knows that the Great Union Hall Booze & Stroller Debate left few stones unturned on this incendiary topic–but because it comes from Prospect Heights instead of Park Slope. We found it on the Prospect Heights Forum at Brooklynian and can’t resist posting it:
As many that read this blog and many other including Eater.com might know that there is a big controversy in The slope over establishments banning Strollers. As a parent myself and some one that works in the restaurant business i have to agree to owners of bar and restaurants banning strollers. Not only do they take a huge a mount of space but they make people uneasy of going in and being a patron. God how many times have i gone in to the Tea Lounge and found a playground, not only it is hard to walk around but try sitting getting a seat. Soda has the same problem, bunch of parents with their pimped out strollers hanging out in the back crowding the room, shit i am trying to have a beer and now i am surrounded by 30 mothers drinking cranberry and soda and their kids wailing away, i am not saying that it is wrong to take your kid out for a beer, i take mine but i never take a stroller, i never let her run around as if it were a playground, for that we have Prospect Park and the Library. But then again its up to an individual owner to make up their own mind. But i did get tired of going to Union Hall on Sunday afternoon and finding myself in the middle of a Stroller parking lot. I say bring your kids to the bar but at least do other patrons and establishments a favor, leave your strollers outside !!
Yes, it could be a troll post, but we present it for what it’s worth.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Apr 1, 2008 at 8:24 am
While I do apprecitate a parent that makes their kid sit quietly on a bar stool while drinking beer from their sippy cup (definitely a giant step up from strollers and kids run amok), I maintain a high level of discomfort about sharing my drinking space with minors . . . I want to speak freely, use expletives freely and not be concerned about the potential long term impact of my antics on impressionable short people . . . that’s why go to bars. I can behave myself everywhere else.
2 Anonymous // Apr 2, 2008 at 6:10 am
At what age is your child too old to be brought into a bar? Is a minor a minor or is there a cut-off point?
3 Anonymous // Apr 2, 2008 at 6:59 am
I think the issue is more the attitude of entitlement and lack of awareness of how actions affect others around them. I suspect these mothers were suffering from this before they had kids and now that they do, carry on. Signed, a mom of a 3 yo
4 Jeni // Apr 9, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Dude… if us smokers could still light up than this wouldn’t be an issue. Parents wouldn’t want to bring their kids in a bar because they would look bad for bringing them into a smoky environment. Now it’s different story because the bar has clear air? The place is still a fucking bar, not a place for anyone under the age of 21. I say Bloomie stops worrying about Canal Street and concentrates on ‘hip’ parents and bars who are blatantly breaking the law. I’m 29 and if I tried to bring my 19 year old God twins into a bar I would be laughed at. Since the under agers are in diapers it’s OK?
I grew up in an Irish family and we have a bar on my Mothers side and one on my Fathers. When I was a baby my parents brought me, smoke and all, to both. It was a different world back then but now anyone in the family who is under 18 can’t come into the one on my Fathers side because it doesn’t serve food (unless we’re waking someone there) and in the one on my Mothers side, the minors are only allowed in the restaurant floor above the bar.
Minors have no place in a bar. At all.
God this issue pisses me off…
5 john // Apr 18, 2008 at 10:13 am
I wish hipsters would get over the whole kids-in-public-places thing. Does it ruin your hip image of yourself to have to share Union Hall with a mother? Oh my god, I just saw a kid in a bar! I’m bleeding from my eyeballs!
And who the fuck cares if there are kids in Tea Lounge?
Jeni, you say yourself that your parents took you to bars when you were a kid – so why does it piss you off so much that other people are doing what your parents did? Are you pissed at your parents, too, for having taken you into that bar and 30 years ago and ruining the good time of all the people around them?
Park Slope is a neighborhood full of people with kids. That’s the makeup of the community – why shouldn’t that be reflected in the venues there? If you want to drink somewhere without any moms or kids, hell, you’ve got all of the LES, why don’t you pick a bar, any bar, there?