One thing I learned about dating a mother, is how many good, progressive upright liberals will do everything short of spit on your shoes should have deign to have a small child. To the extent they're allowed in public, they're allowed as fashion accessories and must be wearing the correct brands and labels, otherwise, having a child is worse than being a Nazi. This is true in most large, "blue" cities, from coast to coast.

I went urban to escape dogs and kids.

There is really nothing odd about it at all; minors (children) are not permitted in bars. A bar can get into serious trouble if they allow minors in: a single violation will not necessarily cause a bar to lose it's license but they can count on more frequent visits from inspectors. If the dog really bothers you that much patronize another establishment. I also fail to see why you brought up the race of the people involved. Are you implying that if the man with the child had been white he would be allowed to stay?

@3
Is that in dog years, or people years?

Dogs are cooler than babies as a general rule. I seem to recall an article of yours a few years ago about how kids can do nothing right, and that's especially true for babies. We love them but we don't necessarily love being around them. This isn't personal. I would probably not have been very entertained in a bar as a baby, nor very entertaining.

Of course I could see exceptions to the rule, but still, dogs aid the bar atmosphere more than small children, who through no fault of their own are walking reminders of both the mortality of their elders and crippling levels of responsibility. Only the former has any place in a bar.

ROTFL. Kids are generally loud, screaming, obnoxious, and never controlled outside of mommy’s weak, passive voice requesting “Now Johnny, stop running around that waiter while he has a two arm loads of meals he is delivering”- irony considering how they love to scream at protests. And you have to ask, who takes their kid in a stroller to a bar and not say - oh I don’t know - a park, a kiddie playground. Dad here, sounds like a real Homer J. Simpson. And if Homer here gets popped with a DUI or gets into an accident- because no one who would take a kid to a bar would actually drive - then who gets the legal blame and legal headaches, regulatory closures, permitting rescinded and outraged female protests? The poor schmuck just trying to run his business on the up-and-up.

And babies are notorious light weights.

No, it's not at all weird that babies aren't allowed in bars.

@1,

Odd. I dated a mother for a long time and had a vastly different experience. I also don't notice that same general disdain towards mothers/children that you speak of, despite residing in the decidedly "blue" city that is Portland even now that I'm no longer in that relationship. Something else going on then, perhaps?

I have never seen a dog or a baby in a bar. Beer gardens, on the other hand, are usually full of both.

I recently moved to Snohomish County and noticed that many breweries and pubs here allow children, and the situation is friendly and fine. How do they manage to skirt the state law? Is it because they don't sell hard liquor?

I figured everyone already knew this but I guess it needs to be stated again:

Nobody but you likes your dog
Nobody but you likes your kid

Do what you will (i.e., bring your dog/kid to bars, etc.) but please don't be surprised if people hate you. You should know better.

The anti-kid atmosphere in this comment thread is notable. I have not encountered such an attitude in various other cultures I've visited; in fact, most humans on this planet (if you'll allow me a mild generalization) seem to actually like kids. What accounts for this? Is this a particularly American phenomenon? A liberal white phenomenon? Is it purely a response to a particular trend of liberal, self-absorbed parenting (i.e., "helicopter parenting", which I think is one of those trends that is totally blown out of proportion)? We need an anthropology PhD student to look into this for us.

(I won't get into being anti-dog. I myself am anti-dog, or, more acurately, anti-dog-person, but I'm trying my best to control these tendencies)

Chuck. For once I agree. Dogs in bars laws should be enforced with the same draconian force as babies in bars laws. (As should bike helmet laws, and camping on sidewalks laws, and pissing and shitting in public laws, and Illegal alien laws).

Small amendment: I should have said, "on this and other threads". It's not so strong here, but as a trend it seems to emerge whenever kids come up as a topic, online.

@12: It's apparently okay as long as there's a wall between the area where the kids are and the actual bartenders' work station. Minors can pass through on their way to, say, the restroom, but can't (to use the statute's terminology) "loiter" there.

Oh let me tell you, Charles, what would transpire if kids were allowed in bars. You see, most parents want to shield their offspring from witnessing drunken tirades, profanity, etc. So if we allowed kids in bars, how long before some parent files a lawsuit against an establishment claiming their child suffers emotional trauma from witnessing a fight between a woman and her boyfriend, in which all manner of sexual details were aired and many profanities were screamed? Bars are for adults. Adults who don't want to have to censor themselves because 5 year old Snotleigh is in earshot of our conversation about sex and drugs.

My god you do get paid by the word.

I don't want your fucking dogs OR bratty children in any restaurant that serves decent/real food. Go to McDonald's where you belong!

Surprising that Charles didn't stop the guy and extoll the virtues of surreptitious drinking in a public park, where his child would be welcome.

I'd link to one of his posts on that topic but such things are not permitted around here any more, for reasons that have never been made clear.

Say what you will about the Washington Post's new commenting system and the glacial pace at which it's being rolled out, but at least they're expanding options for formatting comments rather than eliminating them.

@10 "micro-aggression". And not infrequent macro-aggressions from people that assume a young-looking, thin-looking person doesn't have kids. It's essentially the "hipster" class - young, financially independent people (aka Yuppies and DINKS) who inevitably treats their cities like Seattle and NYC and SF as their own personal playgrounds and where having to moderate their behavior in order to be considerate to any other class of people to be an unreasonable ask.

I didn't notice it when we traveled - @14 correctly notes that most parts of the world look positively towards parenting and motherhood in particular.

I never put groceries in that upper part of a grocery cart because I know some baby has had its diapered asshole planted there and most likely peed or pooped.

The only dogs that should be in public eating establishments are service dogs.

I raised 4 kids and have bred Golden Retrievers for over 25 years. When I go to a bar, it’s to escape kids and dogs. I’m sure as hell not taking either with me.

At an absolute loss as to the relevance of the race of anyone in this post.

@24 I agree.

@12 There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason behind age restrictions at various establishments. Near as I have been able to tell it depends on what sort of permit a place started out with. Not sure if this is still the case but Chuck's in the CD, a beer store with taps and no food, aside from the food trucks outside, used to allow kids (and dogs of course). The Beer Junction in West Seattle: no one under 21. Often very little distinction between a restaurant that serves alcohol and a bar that serves food to the naked eye. The former, kids allowed, the latter, no kids. Pretty sure dogs are not technically allowed in either, which is I guess what Charles is getting at here.

@27 is case in point with regard to the phenomenon I outlined in @14. Curious...

@26:

It seems to be predicated on the layout of the establishment, as well as whether they predominantly serve food-and-booze or just booze. For example, Chuck's doesn't have a bar area where patrons sit directly across from the bartender/server, so that might be the difference, even though their food service is otherwise laughably minimal (seriously, does anyone EVER order the hot dogs there?), but the food trucks and I suppose the ice cream seem to get them a pass from being strictly a drinking establishment. And the "wall" noted by @17 can be something as simple as an open railing - basically any physical barrier that separates the "bar area" from the "restaurant area" qualifies.

I love children AND dogs but when I go to a bar, I'd just as soon not hear either. Bars are for adults with crushing personal problems to forget their worries for a few precious moments. Sorry, Mister Dad, but that's why we carry a flask in the diaper bag,

They don't allow strollers in bike lanes either.

@17 and @26 Thanks! Yeah, it doesn't seem to make much sense. I've seen places where there didn't seem to be any wall, or places where there was lust a metal pipe handrail behind the barstools. Washington has some pretty asinine prohibition-era laws still on the books. It would be nice to see them updated.

@32:

It's not hold-overs from Prohibition so much as it's hold-overs from the post-Prohibition era when the restaurant lobby called the shots. They wanted exclusive control over sales of distilled alcohol by-the-drink and so got their friends in the state legislature to craft a series of Byzantine laws that essentially ensured no hard liquor could be sold in any establishment that didn't also serve food. The laws were partially updated in the late 1980's or early 1990's IIRC, which is why until then we never had cocktail lounges in WA, only taverns that were limited to selling beer and wine.

When it comes to the problem of assholes in bars, this post barely scratches the surface.

You can haul as many babies as you can carry into a RESTAURANT and still be fully within the law, but not one dog.

Come on Charles, surely you're a little brighter than this.

The law keeping babies out of BARS isn't there for the sake of your local boozehole's sanitation, it's there for the sake of the baby, who is presumably better off when his or her immediate caregiver isn't plastered.

Donald Trump hates dogs. 'nuff said.

Dogs rock, fuck bringing your kids to a bar

@37, I would have zero problem kicking a your dog's jaw off it's furry face if it gave me any kind of problem in a bar, and I dictate what is a problem or not. And, I would be completely in the clear because ultimately, dogs not supposed to be there. All I have to say is I felt threatened, and next thing ya know, your dog is running all around that nice couple's farm in the country. I would never even think such thing towards another human being, much less a sweet, innocent, child. That is, unless they were an entitled human with an animal slave.

Growing up in Iowa/Nebraska, it was no big deal if a kid was in a bar. We'd go out to dinner at a restaurant and wait in the bar for a table. Mother and Father Vel-DuRay would have a cocktail and we'd have Shirley Temples (or Roy Rogers). It was the same when we went to my Uncle and Aunt's bar in Valley, Nebraska. I'd sometimes spend an afternoon there, drinking coke and listening to elderly drunks tell me about how the CIA was seeding the clouds. No one called the AA ambulance on me.

Compare and contrast that with WA state, where I once went into The bar at The Golden Lion with those same parents and just about everyone had a gran mal seizure. It's part of the puritanical streak in this state that doesn't allow a body to have a drink while watching people take their clothes off.

But I do have to question the wisdom of someone who is in charge of an infant doing a shot and a beer outside the confines of their, or perhaps their friend's, home.

@24) it was a set up or a red herring. if you missed that, then what can i say.

@32: If you want an example of liquor laws as messed up as Washington's, or worse, look no farther than the home state of your avatar. In Pennsylvania, wine and spirits may be purchased only in a state-run store. For beer — well, it depends on how much you want and how much you care about what you pay. You can buy no less than a case at a time at standard retail prices from a "beer distributor", which in any other jurisdiction would be a term for a wholesaler. Or you can get up to two six-packs at a time to go from any bar, but the price will be the same as if you consumed them all on premises.

The entire premise of this article is fundamentally flawed. There are far more places where you can drink with a kid - literally any restaurant that also has an alcohol license. There are comparatively very few places you can drink with your dog.

The author went to one of the few "dog bars" and acted shocked that it had dogs in it. Isn't that like going to hooters and being surprised at the outfits? It's kinda the whole shtick.

Also. YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DRUNK AROUND CHILDREN! Be sober while you're looking after your baby, dude! Save the shots for when someone else is watching the little tyke. WTF? You're not being "oppressed" because there's a few places in the world reserved for adults.

@39

As a wee robot, I recall sipping a Shirley Temple at the Playboy Club in Chicago while dear old Dad conducted important lunchtime business over cocktails at the next table. The costumed waitresses did the bunny dip even for kids; the rules were strict.

Comparing that memory to modern-day Seattle makes me suspect I may have grown up on another planet.

Kids are loud, cry, etc.

Dogs eat their own shit and lick their own assholes.

I love dogs. I love kids. It’s stupid that you can’t have a baby in a bar. If he/she can speak in sentences (even short ones) then start showing them the door. Else, there’s nothing but stupid Puritan tradition keeping them out. Don’t try to justify it as logical. It’s not. It’s just a stupid tight-assed tradition.

At least bar goers in WA know they can step into a bar and enjoy an evening sans minors. Difficult to avoid dogs though in Seattle and dogs wander around in bars that aren’t necessarily dog bars. Like I was at Buckley’s in Queen Anne and another diner brought their dog in, it wasn’t leashed, and it was begging at other tables and trying to close mb in my lap while I was eating. Dogs eating off strangers’ plates against their will is fucking atrocious, the dog owner ignored it entirely and the waitstaff excused it. I’m extremely allergic to dogs and even more allergic to strange people ir animals stealing food from my plate at a pricey restaurant. So never ever go to Buckley’s if you don’t want strange dogs nibbling off your plate.

@14 As the standard of living increases, the number of children pet household decreases. This is due to a shift away from agriculture and a reduction in child mortality. Combine that with a culture in which we depict ideal people as those who are effortlessly cool forever, and the sheer not-coolness of the perpetual responsibility which is being a parent. You see where I'm going with this.

As I said before, kids are wonderful and we love them and all that, but... They don't belong in a bar and they're rarely super welcome in spaces where adults go to let their hair down. Of course parents deserve to let their hair down too, they need it more than anyone. Still, a child at a bar is exactly the opposite of the ideological promises made by alcohol.

Alcohol, stupefying intoxicant that it is, promises a world, temporarily, where you are cool and witty and funny and smart and sexy and free from your burdens. A child, a responsibility in the middle of an intoxicated state, immediately transforms the act of drinking from that liberating illusion into an equally false but sadly usually more convincing illusion that you are actually a disgusting and irresponsible pig whose burdens mount more by the second because of your innate inability to cope with your brutal, nasty, and short life in which nothing of consequence will ever be accomplished because we all live in a meaningless void. These are both lies, but one of them is a much nicer lie than the other, and babies through no fault of their own make the second lie more readily believed than the first. Sorry, kids.

There is literally ONE bar that openly allows dogs in the Seattle area. ONE. To go to that one bar and then complain about dogs vs. babies seems like a strawman argument for sure.

If you don't want to be around dogs in bars then avoid that one place. If you do or don't want babies in bars that's a whole other issue.

It's like going to one of the few off-leash dog parks and complaining that they allow dogs, when 99% of parks don't allow them. Jeesh. Just go to ANY OTHER PARK.

Much like having neckties and jackets available for gents not properly attired, can we not have available doggie diapers, for when it's just not appropriate to lick one's ass / genitalia and your table-neighbor's face?

There are two different issues here -- the law and how establishments work with it. My understanding is that it depends on what type of license you get. If you are a "tavern", then you can only serve beer, wine and cider, and minors aren't allowed in at all. A "restaurant" (or whatever it is called) requires you to serve a certain number of "meals". You can also create a separate dining area (where minors are allowed) and a "bar" (where they aren't). With this license you can serve hard liquor. Beer store rules are another category (which I won't get into).

In this case, the man ordered a shot of whiskey. That means he couldn't have been in a regular "tavern". This means that it would have been trivial for the owners to allow kids in some or all of the area (since they already served food). But the owners chose not to. For whatever reason, they made the whole place over 21.

I think It is stupid to force owners to get a different license (as well as serve food) just to allow kids into their establishment. The idea that the state is somehow preventing the corruption of our youth is ridiculous. But you could write a book (or at least a good magazine article) about all the stupid liquor laws (that vary from state to state).

I'm sure there are plenty of pubs who just decide to keep it simple and get a tavern license. They aren't interested in serving hard liquor and don't want to deal with the extra paperwork. In this case, though, the owners simply didn't want kids there.

Here is the part I don't get it -- how did they legally allow dogs? Maybe they didn't -- which is the point. It is my understanding that you can have dogs in a place that doesn't serve food. But if you serve food, your dog has to stay outside.

That means that this place simply had a policy of allowing dogs (even though it is illegal) while banning kids (even though they could easily be allowed). Yeah, that's fucked up.

@47 -- Seriously? One bar that allows dogs in all of Seattle? Shit man, you need to get out more.

@46 -- What a ridiculous argument. Poor little Jane, forever scarred because his parents took her to that terrible "drinking establishment". So much worse than when people were openly drinking booze at the restaurant, or when mommy sat down and drank a bottle of tequila after a tough day of work. Shiiiiiiiiiiiit. Come on, it is a bullshit, post-prohibition, puritanical idea. Kids aren't stupid, and it should be up to parents to figure out how to deal with all the crazy fucked up reality of this world. It is perfectly legal to take a kid to a MMA match, or a movie where people are shown getting their heads blown off. But take a kid to a bar? Heavens no.

It is an intolerant, exclusionary idea that is made worse by our stupid laws. Here are a couple scenarios: Let's say Little Richard is touring, and plays a local "bar". You are 16, a big fan, and want to see a living legend. But you can't, because the bar doesn't allow minors. You have no interest in drinking -- you will pay a huge cover charge, order Pepsi all night long -- but you aren't allowed in. Or how about this: Same artist, same venue. Only this time, the kid is 7 years old. The parent is a huge fan as well, and the kid has heard lots of the songs. You figure it will be a special, bonding experience -- take the kid to see a legend and she will remember it the rest of her life. Nope, not allowed. Not unless the bar jumps through numerous hoops. That is fucked up.

The fact that so many establishments -- and people in general -- just don't give a shit suggests they aren't acting in the child's best interest, but the opposite.

Don't some bars have dog mascots? The dog belongs to the bar owners so the dog is there all the time.

@47 I don't even live in Seattle and I've seen dogs at literally 75% of the bars I've been to when I come for visits. Why bother lying when you can be so quickly disproven?

Isn’t the dog-baby double standard because we are worried about the safety of babies but know that dogs can defend themselves? Like, a dog can get out of the way of drunk people, or a drunk dog parent, and won’t be much the worse for wear, but a baby can’t get out of the way and is often collateral damage, sad bad damage with lifelong effects, of a drunk parent. I thought that double standard was for the babies safety.

Nobody is more entitled or oblivious than the Seattle dog owner. We get it, you need attention, now get your dirty, fucking dog out of Pagliacci.

Let dad get a drink. He needs it. He knows he's probably pushing his luck, so he'll knock it back and move on. You don't know him. Don't judge him. Judge dog people. Dog people assume they're automatically entitled to be there and that everyone will love little Chester because oh my god how can you not he's adorable and like he's basically a person anyway you know. Chester can fuck off. Dad can get his drink and fuck off. Someone's phone rings. We all get back to bitching about work.