Before I begin, let me say this: I like children. To my amazement, I even have two of my own. But do I think they should be allowed in pubs? Absolutely not. Increasingly, this is the view taken by London’s publicans, some of whom have decided to introduce a ban on children in pubs after 7 p.m. Egil Johansen, owner of the Kenton pub in Hackney – which operates a 5 p.m. curfew on children – was quoted yesterday lambasting ‘entitled parents’ who ‘come in, sit down, drink and don’t care what their children are doing’. Other London pubs are reported to be considering banning children altogether. The William the Fourth pub in Leyton will now operate a 7 p.m. curfew for children, along with the Nags Head in Walthamstow. Some establishments, such as the Alma in Crystal Palace, have banned children under ten outright. Clearly, modern children – and their parents – need to be told when it’s last orders at the bar.
Clearly, modern children – and their parents – need to be told when it’s last orders at the bar
Before the age of the children’s menu, the babyccino and the kid’s apple juice, children were not allowed into public houses in England and Wales, full stop. It was as late as 1995 when the law was changed to allow children under the age of 14 into pubs. In the 30 years hence, the social contract between publican and parent appears to have totally unraveled: touchy parents feel chronically misunderstood while publicans feel that children are bad for business (and the premises if felt-tip pens are involved).
Times used to be simpler. As a child, when one or other of my parents went to the pub, my sister and I were left outside in the car; periodically we were bought packets of crisps, pork scratchings and pints of flat coke from the gun with the assurance that it ‘won’t be long now, darling’. I don’t see this as parental neglect but rather excellent boundaries. We enjoyed bouncing around in the car while the grownups enjoyed some time off.
These days, if you left your children in a car with the windows down outside a pub, you would be had up almost immediately. Not by the police per se, where I live in rural England is largely unpoliced, but most probably by another parent uploading a picture onto social media with pleas for ‘safeguarding assistance’. Children, then, have crossed the Rubicon into the public house with the end result being that it is no longer a pub but a creche. Walk into a pub at lunchtime and you will hardly be able to hear the waitress detailing the specials due to screaming children. Or indeed arrive at your table due to pushchairs as large as Citroen C5s in the hallway.
As a parent, I get it. Statistically, parents (largely mothers) spend far more time with their children than ever before, an exponential increase since 1965 according to the Economist; if you therefore want to do something that feels vaguely like the child-free days of the prelapsarian past, you have to take your children with you. But it’s gone too far: wailing children sitting in front of (largely untouched) burgers and chips is hardly what Orwell imagined when he described the pub as a sacred place ‘having much in common with a church’. And I’m not even talking about the evening hours when exhausted children who should be in bed (at 7 p.m. latest) are propped up on banquettes with only their parents’ phones for company or, even worse, enough audiovisual ‘kiddie-tech’ equipment to make a Hollywood producer blush.
Modern, typically middle-class, parents who are outraged by the thought of children being banned from pubs typically summon arguments about the child-loving Continent (particularly Italy) where children are notionally welcomed with open arms in bars and restaurants. ‘Why can’t we be more like the Italians’ the Mumsnet lament seems to go. It’s no wonder the birthrate is in decline in child-hating Britain where we banish women and children to the domestic prison they tut. They’re right, the birthrate is in decline, but show me a childless couple who would want to have children after a lunchtime sitting in their local pub and I’ll eat a plate of baby tomato pasta with my hands.
Publicans who have taken the plunge and banned children cite an increase in average spend as customers take longer, spend more and properly consider the cheeseboard when they’re not having to wrestle with the WiFi code and irregular transmission of Peppa Pig over the Chateaubriand. Pushy parents may boycott establishments that ban children in the short-term, but as with the smoking ban, they’ll soon come to accept it as smokers did. Pack up your apple juice and your organic crisps kiddos, it’s time at the bar.
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