In what appears to be a trend, a restaurant in Texas, is banning children during dinner hours.  The restaurant, La Fisheria, will only allow eight year children and older after 7:00PM.  On its Facebook page, the restaurant issued the following statement, “We are a family friendly restaurant, and we also respect all of our customers, thanks for your understanding.”  While certainly controversial, La Fisheria has received far more positive than negative feedback on its Facebook page.

This issue of misbehaved children in public places has become much larger than simply behavior in restaurants.  The fact is, in the age of parentless homes, (both parents working) no one is disciplining children.  Parents often will allow their children to run wild and misbehave because 1) they feel guilty and 2) they’re simply tired and want to enjoy themselves when they go out.  Therefore, they’re more than willing to put up with poor behavior.  Unfortunately, it’s unfair to everyone else, particularly those who don’t have small children.  The only way to legitimately deal with this issue is for restaurants and other establishments, i.e. movie theaters, to simply put a curfew on small children.  It’s not dissimilar to the ban on smoking in New York City Public places.  It’s about the rights of individuals and families not to have to be tortured by poorly behaved kids or by choking cigarette smoke.  Yes it should be the right of anyone who’s stupid enough to breathe smoke in to their lungs and risk getting lung cancer to do so but it doesn’t entitle them to put others at risk. At first, the smoking ban was highly controversial, although most people welcomed it but everyone got used to it and now it’s simply the way things are.  The same will happen with curfews on kids.  Everyone will be better off in the end.  And the best part is it isn’t discriminatory because kids grow up and like a big fraternity, everyone eventually gets to enjoy their turn at the top.