Restaurant to parents: No screaming kids allowed

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Restaurant to parents: No screaming kids allowed

Owner of Olde Salty restaurant in North Carolina spurs controversy with signs

By Inbar

TODAYshow.com contributor

On an airplane, in a movie theater or in a restaurant, the shrill sound of a

childish voice raised in distress can resemble nails across a blackboard —

especially when it’s not your child. Now one North Carolina eatery has drawn a

line in the sand by posting signs prohibiting children’s uproar.

“Screaming Children Will NOT Be Tolerated!” say placards posted at the Olde

Salty restaurant in Carolina Beach. N.C. And while the signs may seem to be

telling some parents their patronage is unwelcome, restaurant owner Armes

said it’s actually been a business boon.

Image: restaurant sign

WECT

The Olde Salty restaurant in North Carolina has stirred passions with this

message to patrons who are parents.

“It has been a good thing for us,” Armes told NBC affiliate WECT. “It has

brought in more customers than it has ever kept away.”

Indeed, a first-time diner at the Olde Salty told WECT he embraced the signage.

“It’s not very enjoyable when you hear a bunch of kids screaming,” Gibson

said. “It’s nice to see a sign like that up.”

Against the law?

But not all agree: In fact, one local woman told the station she believes the

sign is downright illegal. Chambliss, the mother of an autistic child,

accused Armes of discriminating against special-needs children.

“I think she needs to meet some of these kids, and I think she needs to see that

they are awesome,” Chambliss told WECT. “Please don’t shut them out because they

don’t fit in the perfect box everyone wants them in.”

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Armes said she told Chambliss: “Autism is not a word on that sign, ma’am.” And

her restaurant doesn’t kick diners with loud children to the curb, she added.

Instead, they are asked to take the offending child outside until they pipe

down.

Still, Chambliss, who said she believes the sign violates the American with

Disabilities Act, contends the restaurant’s owner basically said her autistic

child was not welcome there.

“She looked at me and said, ‘I cannot believe you even take him in public. You

must be the only one,’ ” Chambliss told WECT.

Online controversy

Yet within days of WECT’s highlighting the Olde Salty signage, dozens of

messages sprouted up on the Web debating the issue. A Dubois, Pa., woman said

she, too, has an autistic child, but wouldn’t expect diners to tolerate the

occasional volume.

“I hate hearing her shrieking, so there’s no way I’m going to expect someone

else to put up with it; I don’t really see a problem here,” the poster wrote.

“If you can’t keep yourself or your kid under control, then it’s time to go back

to the zoo.”

A Bowling Green, Ky., woman described the pain childless couples face when

around loud children. “Our threshold for yelling, running around, etc., is very

low. If I wanted to be around crazy kids, I’d eat at Chuck E. Cheese.”

But an polis, Md., dad suggested the signs might not go far enough — they

could include adults, too. The man said that when his child began chattering

loudly at a local restaurant recently, he asked his son to use his “inside

voice.”

“[but] my wife said that in retrospect, he wasn’t all that loud — not compared

to the person in the bar area in the next room who was laughing like a hyena,”

the land dad added. “THAT turned heads. Our son, not so much.”

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As for Olde Salty owner Armes, she told WECT she’s only trying to create an

atmosphere conducive to a great dining experience. “We want to attract the type

of people that come in knowing they aren’t going to have to sit behind a table

with a bunch of screaming children,” she said.

Besides, Armes may actually have a gentle touch compared to other restaurants.

At the popular Pensacola Beach, Fla., restaurant Peg Leg Pete’s Seafood, a more

forbidding (albeit misspelled) sign is posted outside:

“Unruley children will be cooked and eaten.”