High-end California hotel begins banning children | Hacker News Reader

High-end California hotel begins banning children

sfgate.com

31 pointsbookofjoe42 comments

Just stayed at a couple of places in Portugal which were "adults only" and it was fine. Also stayed at places which were explicitly child friendly and designed with facilities for children. Seems perfectly reasonable so long as there are a mix of places in an area available for different needs.

(I guess a hotel which had children allowed and non-children allowed sections far enough apart that you could have a child-free area would be a possible workaround; in the same way that not EVERY room needs to be handicap-friendly even if you need a certain number which are)

I recently stayed at a group of resorts like this. The left-hand side was geared towards families with young children; the middle side was geared towards vacationing families; the right-hand side seemed geared to singles there to engage in drunken debauchery, like me.

“…any hotel that bans minors in California violates California Civil Code 51 — also known as the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which provides blanket legal protections against discrimination in California businesses.”

Of course California technically bans adult-only public accommodation.

Wonder if the solution is malicious compliance or conversion into a non-public venue, e.g. “invitation only” or whatnot.

Not that I agree with this but couldn’t the easier way to do this be to just serve alcohol everywhere?

Sounds good to me whether my kids are there or not.

I was thinking clothing optional. But yours is a better idea.

I don't think that would work. Sure some places ban minors from places just serving alcohol, but restaurants that serve alcohol alongside food are generally open to everyone (even if they don't serve alcohol to minors).

It is a common misconception that children are universally disallowed in places that serve alcohol. If this were true then kids wouldn't be allowed in Applebees or at baseball games. "Minors aren't allowed in bars" is often a lie told by security or bartenders so that they don't have to worry about carding people that are already inside the establishment; this falsity has since worked its way into the zeitgeist as law. To be fair there _are_ places that have statutes that prohibit minors in bars that don't sell food specifically but it's typically on a jurisdiction (county or state) basis per their respective ABC boards. Every single time I was denied entry to a bar (typically music venues) under the age of 21 it was strictly based on feels - none of those places had such regulations. See also security denying "up and down" (vertical) licenses despite the birthday complying or denying passports or requiring ID for all people under a certain age... it's mostly about streamlining operations. The law generally prohibits serving those under 21 and makes no stipulations regarding how they identify themselves.

In this case, however, CA has a state-wide ABC that apparently _does_ make it illegal for minors to "enter and remain" in "bars and night clubs". The hotel would likely have a restaurant license though so the point is moot.

[1] https://www.abc.ca.gov/licensing/license-types/

Have you been to a bar lately? They are all teeming with toddlers and young children nowadays.

Always choose malicious compliance. Always.

This is a global trend that seems to follow the general decline of parenthood in almost every country. The more hostile our culture becomes to parenting the more it will decline. While it’s a personal choice to have children, there is a societal threat to declining birth rates. We would do much better to be supporting parents and encouraging family formation.

Why is this a threat to any rich country? There are millions upon millions of people who would do anything for an opportunity to come to the United States, and we don't let them in. If we ever need more people, we can turn the dial however we choose.

(This is not an argument against supporting parents. I just don't understand the concern around birth rates.)

Same thing happening all around the world, even poor countries threatened by population collapse.

Even if you can convince educated, relatively younger population of poorer countries to come and work for you, integration is a real issue. As an expat who lives in a rich country, I can say that; it's not easy. But if most of the native population turn into seniors, especially if they start to feel like a minority(age/ethnicity/cultural gap), I think that would be very annoying for them.

The world is overpopulated, population collapse is a good thing. Except for the economy. Which also happens to be a good thing considering how far we're into overshoot.

Not enough people to take care of seniors? That's not really a problem. The problem is it pays better to do other work that's useless or downright destructive to society, like trying to show users more ads to get them to consume more.

> The world is overpopulated,

[citation needed]

> Not enough people to take care of seniors? That's not really a problem.

Unless you're a senior or care about your parents...

Blood-and-soil types get a little antsy when you suggest letting in... people with perhaps a more tan complexion, let's say. They tend to dress it up with other language, though.

Agreed. I was happy for decline of world population but seeing the rise of anti-envirmentalism makes me think that child-free people might be more inclined to be selfish. After me, the deluge!

Edit: to be clear, I see possibility of selfishness as a side-effect of being childfree, not a corelation.

Interesting correlation, if one doesn’t have offspring to “leave a better world” to why should they care? Hadn’t thought of that before.

If you think that simply having children makes one selfless, I recommend talking to like... 80% of the people with parents for five minutes about their childhoods.

Selfish or otherwise unpleasant people can be found in any demographic: childless people, people with children, people over 1.80m, people under 1.80m, etc.

Some demographics certainly have higher ratios of unpleasant people. In some demographics it's even close to 100% (e.g. neo-Nazis).

It's entirely unclear to me if the rates are different for people without children. If they are, then you really need to do better than this kind of armchair analysis that you've posted here.

not sure if there is a decline in parenthood.

but there are a lot more pensioners and generally people without kids who prefer to vacation away from other people's screaming kids

I have kids and I plan to occasionally leave them with the grandparents, and vacation away from other people's screaming kids.

No, there's an _economic_ threat to declining births (and also a demographic threat makes certain classes of people... well, let's just say "itchy"), but that is an entirely artificial problem that we could solve, if it wouldn't hit NBC Universal on the pocketbook.

Child free resorts are being advertised here in the Netherlands. I think it's a great idea. Many people go on holiday to de-stress.

Personally I plan my vacation time in off season September and October but that's not an option for everyone.

> Many people go on holiday to de-stress.

A friend of mine that has kids said that once you have kids, there's no such thing as going on vacation. You're just being a parent somewhere else.[0]

I personally am skipping the side-quest of parenthood, but have certainly seen his claim play out. My wife and I were at Universal Studio Hollywood, and some couple had a baby in a carriage that wouldn't stop crying, and I just couldn't help but think...imagine spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars to go on vacation, and you still gotta deal with a screaming baby.

I couldn't deal with that.

[0] For anyone saying "Just let the grandparents/some other family take them for the week", this isn't an option for everyone for various reasons. In my friend's case, it's because he lives in London, but his parents live in the USA, and his in-laws live in Malaysia.

The fact that you characterize parenthood as a "side-quest" confirms that you probably shouldn't become a parent.

Yeah.

If you’re not looking forward to it being the main event, you probably should just skip it all together and save yourself the disappointment.

Parenting is extremely undervalued in modern society.

It's a good thing then that they're quite deliberately skipping it without compunction, though it seems not without unwarranted judgement.

There's a weird vaguely-evangelical bent here that is, ultimately, not surprising, but still jarring. Threads about having children tend to bring judgemental parents out of the woodwork to tut-tut anyone who dares to choose a different path.

No one seems to be as dogmatic or tut-tutting as much in this thread as you, so you should be aware that you seem to be unintentionally projecting.

This is a basically a tut-tutting conga line at this point.

A fair statement, even though the phrasing is meant to be humorous and tongue-in-cheek.

I'm 42 and have simply never felt the desire to be a parent. Never felt a biological need to reproduce. Don't get me wrong, I have a libido, but never wanted a baby to come from it.

I can rave for hours about how great the DINK life is. A sibling comment talked about the logistics of traveling on vacation with kids. It's amazing to not have to deal with any of that.

A lot of people who don't characterize it as a "side-quest" shouldn't be parents either.

And yet they reproduce anyway.

I knew it wouldn't be long before the blood-and-soil folks came out lol. Why do you feel the need to suggest not becoming a parent to someone who just said it wasn't the life they wanted? Do you mete out the same judgement on parents who also should have abstained?

If you have kids, you need a vacation from vacations. Even well behaved kids require a lot of extra logistics on the part of the parents. It's significantly more work than just staying at home.

I remember our first trip - I had two carseats strapped to my back, rolling 1 large bag, and had 3 other bags I was carrying. The lines, the airplane ride, .... Then you get to your destination, have to make sure they don't do anything stupid while waiting 30-60 minutes for luggage, have to get the (larger) car, have to get all the carseats in properly, etc.

Figuring out food for everyone. Entertaining everyone. The extra bathroom breaks. Etc.

I still get headaches thinking about negotiating sleeping arrangements.

One of my favorite is actually to just go camping. There's not a ton of extra work involved. You have a home base. You have entertainment. There's food but you pack it and its set in stone rather than having to figure out food on the fly.

My daughter is 4 months old but my wife and I were both avid travelers before she came along. We’ve agreed vacations are for us until she’s old enough to talk about what she’s just experienced. And even then we’re not taking her anywhere elaborate.

I salute you, with your endurance and your temerity.

I had to once shepherd a family trip (15+ people?), managed to get everyone out of the airport, into the bus, got all the luggage out at the hotel, everybody checked in, then the bus driver came over to me and said, "there's a piece of luggage still out there on the curb".

It was mine.

I have two kids, and I'm firmly in the "why pay extra to be a parent somewhere else" camp while my wife is the opposite. However I have to admit the kids do get a lot out of trips, even if it's draining for me. They always seem to "level up" cognitively when exposed to new things for two weeks straight. I'll grit my teeth and suffer through a trip so that the other 3 family members are happy.

That being said, I fully intend to take advantage of adults-only hotels/resorts when I have time and child care covered. If I'm going to go on vacation, I certainly will want to minimize my exposure to other people's kids. No one likes a 3 year old running around in the hotel room above you at 12 AM and then again at 6 AM.

I find it surprisingly endearing in other children, and incredibly annoying in mine. I presume because the act is funny if you are not responsible for stopping (or failing to stop) it.

99.999% of businesses are child friendly. One comes along that states an opinion and offers a child-free option and the sky is falling.

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