Chuck E. Cheese way worse than biker bars: Fist Fights 'R Us?


I have thus far in my parenting career managed to avoid Chuck E. Cheese. As someone who wants to run screaming out of the local public pool (the noise! the smell of chlorine! the constant frantic need to protect your babies from certain watery death!), Chuck E. Cheese with three little boys, well ... whoops, how did I lose that invitation?!? It turns out my instincts are shared by others, who are, perhaps, less willing to dispense with social graces and their children's begging and pleading.

As the Wall Street Journal reports today: Chuck E. Cheese birthday parties have been known to get a little out of hand. So out of hand, in fact, that the restaurant has begun to give up liquor licenses in some restaurants, and post armed security guards in others. In Brookfield, Wis., the Chuck E. Cheese gets way more calls than the biker bar down the street, according to the town's police chief. Typical of the fare: adults have too much to drink and one parent decides someone else's child is hogging a machine, voicing their complaints in loud and unsavory language. Next, here comes mama bear (or, upon occasion, papa) to protect his, or her, babe. One fight involved 40 people slinging punches and insults.


The truth that emerges from this collection of police reports: combine family events, alcohol and a limited amount of resources (game machines) and you send your clientele back to the Dark Ages. I wouldn't be surprised if many wedding venues catering to a similar cross-section of Americans as Chuck E. Cheese were to experience equally astonishing displays of bad behavior. You can't choose your family. But you can choose whether to invite them to a party that mixes drunkenness with your baby girl's big day.

Now, you'll have to excuse me while I write a business plan for the next great frontier in American entertainment: Cosmos-n-Bullseyes. It's a shooting range with cocktail waitresses! Booking weddings for 2010.

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