I have three thriving locals within the space of a mile, none of which serve food except for pork pies. And whilst I share the preference for having an atmosphere as far removed as possible from a toddler's birthday party, I think it's crucial to a good community pub that it welcomes everybody and makes reasonable allowances for people with children. Too often, what some grumpy old men mean by not wanting small children around is that they don't want women in the pub - women being the de facto primary carers of most children, the effect of excluding children is to exclude women. My mother, being a single parent, took my brother and me into pubs throughout our childhood. We understood perfectly well that it was a place to sit and have drinks and crisps, and not a place where people would let us make the furniture into a den or launch missiles the length of the bar. Good landlords and staff should be able to handle the presence of children, and are entitled to ask anyone to leave whose behaviour is impacting disproportionately on others, whether that means parents letting their children run riot or groups of jostling, shouty, would-be alpha-males hogging all the space at the bar.
