Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A kid walks into a bar … He’s locked out of his home and he needs a grown-up’s assistance. The bartender kicks him out, into the rain, insisting that he could lose his liquor license for letting the child wait for help inside the swanky New York City joint — which for argument’s sake, we’ll just call Paranoid Poopie Head Pub.*
My sincere apologies if you were fooled by my opening line — that clearly wasn’t a joke … It’s my friend’s account of a real incident she witnessed at Paranoid Poopie Head Pub.
But the bartender’s behavior, you might agree, was so ridiculous that it does border on laughable.
Sigh.
If my child ever found himself alone and scared and wandered into an age-inappropriate venue, be it a bar, a tattoo parlor, or a Miley Cyrus concert, I sure hope that adults there would help him instead of worrying about the legal consequences for their businesses.
When it comes to running afoul of the law to help a child — or anyone, for that matter — moral ambiguity abounds. Would you steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving child? Give medical marijuana to a sick child? Hide a runaway from his abusive parents?
But in this case, there was no moral ambiguity and only a (minor) legal one. It’s against the law to serve alcohol to minors, yes, but the child clearly wasn’t there to drink. In New York state, it’s also against the law for a child under age 16 to be at a place licensed by the state liquor authority without a parent or guardian present — but a spokesman for the liquor authority assured me that they would never penalize a bar in a situation where a child just needs help.
“We absolutely, unequivocally, would never charge a bar in that situation, let alone take their license,” New York State Liquor Authority spokesman Bill Crowley told me. “We hope they would do what anyone else would do — try to contact (the child’s) parents, call the police and try to help the poor kid.”
Frankly, I could have guessed that’s what Crowley was going to say. What reasonable person wouldn’t exercise discretion in a case like this? It’s common sense … that apparently, one particular bartender has in very short supply.
My friend, fortunately, possesses common sense in spades. She helped the child get in touch with his mother and waited with him, outside in the rain, until the grateful woman arrived.
A happy ending. Phew! Let’s drink to that — just not at the Paranoid Poopie Head Pub. They don’t deserve the business.
*Name changed to protect pub employing a paranoid poopie head.
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