Maybe a little of each, who knows? But even unsuccessful lawsuits can cost you time and money.
And like I said, not all kids are nice, well-behaved and spend their money at the stores like the kid in the article. Some come in, make messes, act like little brats, and then the business has to deal with them. And most of their parents usually swear up and down, “MY little sweetie is the PERFECT ANGEL!!!” (Of course, this is the same “Perfect Angel” that knocked over an entire exhibit and threw a fit when we told him he wasn’t to take food into the SportsWorks area)
As for “why 12?” it’s because they just picked an age that seemed to suit them best – no, it’s not perfect, but I’m guessing for the most part it works.
It’s like the phrase, “This is why we can’t have nice things!” Don’t blame the store for covering their asses – blame the douchebags who make these policies necessary by, well, acting like douchebags.
Everyone here agrees that stores can have policies about limiting customer behavior which is uneconomic for the store or disruptive to other customers, etc.
But what the kid here was doing would have been quite acceptable behavior in an older customer: browsing, occasionally buying something.
How about having as a policy kicking out disruptive customers regardless of age, and NOT kicking out regular, paying customers - again, regardless of age?
I work in a discount store. One six year child was literally parked just inside our front door and told to stay there by her mother, who went off to somewhere else. When I noticed her, I told the manager, who put her in his office. When her mother came back a half hour later, she had a fit that I dared to approach her child! I pointed out that anyone could have snatched the child, and her response was “I had my eyes on her the whole time.” Yeah, right.
People do let their children run wild in the store. I hope no child every gets abducted because their parents see us as free babysitters.
OTOH, I have parents who say “(Kid’s name.) I cannot see you. I have to be able to see you at all times.” Good policy.
I didn’t say the kid needed a babysitter. I said the father used the store as a free babysitter while he went shopping for “a few hours.”
When my kids were that age, I let them go into stores and spend their own money, but I certainly didn’t expect the stores to accommodate my kids for an hour or more without me or their mother.
When I was about 12 or so, I was barred from entering a Toys R Us, because I didn’t have an adult with me. No age limit was posted there either. I don’t know when you were young, but this was around 1980. The small toy store in my neighborhood (yes, there were once such things) also usually prevented children from entering alone, but the owner knew me by sight and trusted me.
My recollection of the story was that the dad would meet the kid at the store in a few hours. Not that the dad parked the kid in the store and told him to stay there for a few hours.
Given that the kid had to bike himself to the store, which was some distance away, this sounds more like a rendevous time than a “babysitting”.
Depending on the bike routes available, I’d have been more concerned about the ride there than anything that might happen while shopping.
I expect with the publicity this store has cost themselves more than one good customer for no reason.
I think the fact that they asked his age may be indicative of something this kid was doing that was against policy. Whether that was messing up the displays or playing with all the legos and not sharing with other kids or just wandering around for 90 minutes without so much of a hint that he might be considering making a purchase I don’t know, but it seems like his father expected him to be able to hang out for several hours in this store while he took care of other chores. There is a big difference between looking at things while you make a choice of what to buy for 20 or 30 minutes and just wandering around and touching all the things for 2 hours while you wait for your dad and without being there we can’t know which of these scenarios is closer to the truth.
That was the dad’s initial thought also - that he must have done something wrong. But he hadn’t, and the store isn’t even alleging that he did.
However, the store spokesperson isn’t alleging that he did anything - the store claims this was a straight application of its policy.
Thus, acording to the store, it doesn’t matter if the kid was there for five minutes or five hours - it’s not a “you are using us for babysitting” thing, it is a “your kid’s safety is our concern” thing.
Also, it looks more like an “I’ll neet you at the store in a few hours”, not “please hang out at the store for a few hours”.
If this is the case, then the store was being forced to act as a babysitter. Further, the area they kept him in was the kid’s section, which has supervision. I’d say the store was in the right.
The boy was there for an hour before he was approached. It seems like they were willing to use discretion about their policy, until he’d been in the store for an unusual amount of time.
That’s a completely different question - that is, when a parent may leave a child home alone without supervision.
The issue here is not whether a parent is leaving a child home alone, but whether a parent is allowed to have a child travel outside the home, to go shopping.
Obviously, different considerations apply - they must. Otherwise, your cited atrticle leads to an absurdity. From your cited article:
[Emphasis]
Are you telling me that in Ontario a 15 1/2 year old can’t walk to the store and buy stuff without a parental accompanyment - because otherwise the store “acts as a babysitter”?
Malthus - It’s not a great stretch to figure if a child can’t be left in their own home unattended, they shouldn’t be left unattended in a public place. And if you’re thinking a child going shopping is attended by the sales force, then that is expecting them to babysit, IMHO.
I just think, given the laws in the jurisdiction, that the store has a right to expect the parent accompany their child.