Everyone has been to a restaurant with some rowdy, loud children in it.
However, bet you haven’t been to one when the police were called on the parents of these children, have you?
This is exactly what happened to Eli Gau and his wife Lillian Maliti when visiting an Applebees in Texas. Apparently, their children were a bit loud and “too active” for management of the Applebees. As you can imagine, there is a bit of a backlash as a result.
The couple has a pair of toddlers. Ryan is three years old. Ethan is one year old.
They admit their children are a bit active, but claim they are no more rambunktious than any normal toddlers their age. However, having the police called over their children being too active left them “heartbroken”. They can’t believe they were treated like common criminals.
According to the article:
‘They’re kind of active. They act like children. They’re not adults”, explained Gau to local affiliate KHOU 11.
The trouble began on Sunday night when the family went to the “family-friendly” restaurant and Ryan left the table. Gau says he immediately retrieved his son but that wasn’t enough for Applebees staff.
“I went and grabbed him, and as I was grabbing him and coming back, the manager was walking to me,” said Gau.
Not only did the manager tell the couple to leave, but the manager told the couple that he’d already called the police, who were waiting outside. According to the manager, the kids were making too much noise.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Department gave the parents a notice for criminal trespassing.
You already know many people are screaming racism because this incident happened in Texas and the parents were black.
However, I wonder what the details of this story are really.
Just can’t imagine someone calling 911 on some kids after the first incident. They make it seem like the child got up, ran down the isle and the police were called immediately.
If this is how the situation actually played out, then that is clearly bogus. Besides, who calls the police over children being a little loud and active any way? Seems like the normal steps in the procedure is to ask the family to leave because they are disturbing the other guest. Now if the family refuses or something like that, then fine, call the police, but just for being “active”?
Finally, how in the world is children being in Applebees criminal trespassing? I would love to hear the police departments explanation to this. Got a feeling this isn’t the end of this story and we will hear more about it in the near future.
Applebees released the following statement:
“Our franchise owner-operator has apologized to the Guest and invited the party back into their restaurant to demonstrate the standard of service each of our Guests deserve to receive during every visit. As a brand, our focus is and must always be providing the best possible experience for all of our Guests at all times. When a disruption in our restaurants affects any of our Guests, it is the manager’s responsibility to step in to resolve the situation. It is exceedingly rare that a situation requires the assistance of law enforcement, and our franchisee is using this instance as a teaching moment to better manage future disruptions in their restaurants.”
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