Should Alcohol be Served in Theme Parks?

[ciallkennett]

I stumbled across this video a few weeks ago and watched it again today. It's of a presumed drunk man fighting rather poorly with staff members at Disneyland while onlookers watch in horror as security failed to turn up to help staff:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0qtqsUAXBQ&feature=share[/youtube]

Granted, he's drunk. His behaviour would be unacceptable in any part of society, let alone in a theme park. But the thing that annoyed me most about the video was the woman shouting throughout about how the park is a "family park", about how disgusting his behaviour is and how he is clearly drunk. Not only is her voice annoying, but the camera turns at the end to see the woman who was shouting holding a beer.

One drunk being an idiot at a park, a woman shouting how Disneyland is a "family" park while holding (and presumably consuming) the same item which led to his behaviour...

So, my question is based on both parks of the video - should alcohol be served at a theme park? More specifically, should alcohol be served at a theme park which specifically caters for and is marketed for families with young children such as Disneyland?

 

[furie]

It is possible to drink responsibly, but that doesn't mean everyone does. Should everyone suffer because of the few? I don't know really?

Madame_Furie always has an issue when it comes to our birthdays. We like to go out to places and do fun things. Warwick Castle, Theme Parks, Ice-Skating etc. The thing that aggravates us is that most of our "adult" friends wont come because "there's no drinking involved". There seems to be a stupid unwritten rule that you can only celebrate an adult's birthday with alcohol.

I enjoy drinking and enjoy celebrating a birthday with a drink, but I'm just as happy to go and do something silly and not have a drink. I think I've only ever had a single bottle of beer at a theme park in my life. I just don't associate theme parks and beer, I get enough of a kick out of the rides to want to have a beer too.

However, I don't begrudge those who do. I don't really understand it, but I'm not a "quick pint at lunch" type of guy anyway, when I drink, I drink...

So no idea to be honest. It's something I don't understand but is it a huge issue? Is this happening four times daily in a hundred parks across the world, or is it simply a once a year in a couple of parks kind of thing? I've seen drunks at Alton causing trouble before, but only the once I can think of. It's a bit of a day ruin-er, but only as much as queue jumpers or an bad hot dog.

 

[Pierre]

One of my best theme park trips ever was one of the Ghosterforce days at Thorpe, we met a couple of girls with spaz passes and got hammered with them all day and skipped queues in between every 2-3 pints. We caused no bother and had a fantastic day.

Situations can happen with people under the influence of alcohol anywhere, I don't think being in a theme park intensifies it.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

I had my first legal alcoholic drink at Chessie [/not so fun fact]

As always with alcohol, it's people and moderation that defines the issue, not who sells it...

 

[Youngster Joey]

I'm split on this one. I don't believe alcohol should be served at parks aimed at children say Disneyland or Sesame Place. However I also don't believe that everyone should be punished for a few fools who can't control themselves.

The other thing to remember is that Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom at WDW don't serve alcohol in the park, but Disney's California Adventure as well as Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom DO serve alcohol. So it's mixed messaging to begin wiith

 

[Pierre]

I've just got home and watched that video.

That was dealt with really poorly by staff and the constant spraying of whatever the **** it was in his face was only antagonising him, he didn't look overly aggressive? On the other hand the video starts too late on to get an idea of why we were in that situation in the first place.

Think the bloke in the video could probbaly get a case against them for that treatment to be honest.

 

[Mark]

Personally I dont think it should be served in Theme parks.

I agree with Phils sentiments that it is indeed a tough call because not everyone goes beserk, gets totally wasted and violent - I was there the day Pierre did it at Thorpe and tbh, he was more hilarious than usual.

You could try to implement some kind of moderation policy. Ie dont serve those who have had enough already etc. However, the problem arises when you try to police it. Who decides where that line of enough is when you stop serving alcohol? Some people simply don't get aggressive and violent regardless of how much they have had to drink but others get like it on a consistent basis whenever they drink. We all know what our own personality traits are when we are drunk. Personally I get camper or more emmotional for instance. Sometimes I can get incredibly argumentative.

If you tell the bar staff not to serve anyone who has had too much or someone is clearly drunk. Its a blanket rule that doesn't really work. I worked in a pub for 3 years and it really doesnt work because each person is different in how they 'handle' their drink as I have said above.

But even if you could stipulate a 'cut-off' its normally too late at that point. After all, you are stopping them drinking because it is very clearly evident they have had enough. The fact that you are then cutting them is more likely to make them angry and aggresive because no matter what you say, in their eyes, 'they are fine'. I'm pretty sure we have all done it at some point (those of us that are legal of course ), our friends tells us we have had enough and we say we are fine. Put that into a context when a complete stranger does it and you have a recipe for aggressive exchanges.

So lets say you have a person who IS an aggresive drunk...

The said person may very well be now drunk and you may very well have cut them off. So well done, but then you still have to contend with the fact they are now wandering around the theme park in their drunken state being aggresive to other people in the queues who have actually done nothing at all wrong. I have actually seen this happen before during a CF event towards a CF member many moons ago.

I've often thought that perhaps you could restrict the areas in which people can drink, so at the very least, if they cant queue up with a beer in their hand, they cant be getting drunker and (for those that do), getting into an agressive state. However, this still doesn't prevent someone sitting in the 'pub garden area' getting wasted and then going out into the park and causing an issue.

Yes it is unfortunate that a minority have the ability to totally ruin it for everyone else BUT if it was me on the recieving end of the abuse I wouldn't care how much of a minority they are.

I also agree that this should be even more important at parks that are clearly catered for families with children. The Disney Parks being a prime example. The Mgaic Kingdom in Florida for instance serves no alcohol whereas the other parks do and I have noticed the differences it creates. In Epcot we noticed a couple having a go at someone for not being 'fully' in the smoking area, what was almost amusing was the fact that the same person shouting at the smoker was holding a buggy in one hand and a beer in the other... at 11.30am! I hate to think what state they would have been in if they had been drinking for the majority of the day in that instance.

On a totally personal level, one of the other things I particularly dislike is the smell of alcohol on someones breath. When in close proximety of it, its vile and quite frankly makes me want to vom. Not a great notion in the queue for a rollercoaster. It is similar to when many people complain about smoking in queue lines etc. They have banned it for that reason, because of the health implications and also because others feel ill etc and they dont want the 2nd hand smoke. Equally I don't want the nasty stench of alcohol around me either.

Given that it is just so hard to police and it is an issue that can cause much bigger problems if the 'wrong' type of person is involved it would just be far easier to have a blanket ban on alcohol in parks, just the same way they do in other public locations for all the same reasons. As a side note, this has been my opinion long before the video surfaced.

 

[TP Rich]

I think it should be served, but should be served with enforced restrictions, to ensure that nobody will come to any harm as a result of alcohol consumption.

 

[Mark]

^ Such as? What 'enforced restrictions' can be put in place that will have the desired effect and actually be policeable by the staff??

 

[Youngster Joey]

I think this should also be said. Disney Advertises to "Drink around the World" at Epcot but says no Alcohol in Magic Kingdom. At least parks should NOT send Mix Messages

 

[kimahri]

Those noises that drunk guy was making. That was was weird. In fact the whole fight was weird. Also, lol he got a hit on the guys crotch, that must of hurt.

Banning alcohol in the park won't really stop it, somewhere went my sister went, can't remember where, they were encouraging people to drink before going to the water parks and ****. The same thing'll probablly happen.

Oh well.

Edit: Actually, how often does this happen? Especially in relation to how many people do drink alcohol in parks? One dude, drinks at disneyland and gets roudy and then DRAMATIC THREAD ON THE INTERNET! It's fine as it is.

 

[TP Rich]

^ Such as? What 'enforced restrictions' can be put in place that will have the desired effect and actually be policeable by the staff??

Restrictions as to how much alcohol one individual can purchase throughout the day. Different numbers of purchases for different drinks - bearing in mind their strengths.

 

[tks]

Knee jerk much.

 

[marc]

After the state that we saw people in at Epcot etc it should not be sold unless your having a meal or after 5pm. There were people walking round drunk at 1pm and the smell in queue lines was horrid.

 

[Mark]

^ Such as? What 'enforced restrictions' can be put in place that will have the desired effect and actually be policeable by the staff??

Restrictions as to how much alcohol one individual can purchase throughout the day. Different numbers of purchases for different drinks - bearing in mind their strengths.

But like I said before everyone has different tolerance levels to alcohol... 1 person can handle far more than another etc...

 

[Ethan]

^ Exactly. Once I had two Malibu Oranges, and because I had only eaten a piece of bread beforehand, I was so out of it. Obviously I had loads more booze after, but it was scary hearing about it afterwards, thinking how unaware you sometimes are when your drunk.

Oh and that was in Austria, the drinking age is like 4 there

I don't think alcohol should be served at parks. Yes, it's a place of fun, but you can have as much, if not more fun without it.

 

[gavin]

The fact that it's at a "family" theme park is 100% irrelevant to be honest.

Take a look at pretty much any town centre on a Saturday afternoon when there's a big football/rugby match on. There will likely be a lot of drunk people around and in the same vicinity as "THE CHILDREN!!!!" who are out shopping with parents etc.

Try Chester, or even a train going through Chester, when the races are on in the summer; it's full of pissed people by 11am. It's a **** ing nightmare, and there are plenty of people with kids around.

Kids see pissed people all the time. Ok, you can argue that Disney (or wherever) should be some kind of sanctuary from that, but it's not as if these "incidents" are common enough to warrant it being labelled as some kind of problem.

Mountain. Molehill.

 

[Colossus]

I`m not really fussed, I can`t think of any instances of people being overly drunk at parks. Personally I don`t see why you would need alcohol to enhance your day whilst being at a park, like furie said, the rides are enough of a buzz for me. But I don`t particularly drink much anyway.
Also like Gavin stated, you can`t shield children from the effects of alcohol, it`s just not possible.
You don`t need alcohol to create anti-social behavior, and also not everybody that has a drink morphs into some anti-social tyrant.
You can`t enforce it, it would either be a yes or a no.

 

[TP Rich]

Take a look at pretty much any town centre on a Saturday afternoon when there's a big football/rugby match on. There will likely be a lot of drunk people around and in the same vicinity as "THE CHILDREN!!!!" who are out shopping with parents etc.

Hmm... I somewhat agree with your point, but somewhat disagree under the fact that town centres are public areas supposed to be accessible by any age group, whereas some theme parks are targeted specifically at young children, and I think that therefore it is relevant to the age group the park is aimed at. Not the strongest point, I know, but I do think it does bear some relevance.

I also notice that particular parks do not allow alcohol to be taken out of particular areas. For instance, at Thorpe, alcohol is not permitted outside of Port Atlantis, and at Chessington, the family pub. Though this has recently been replaced with 'Adventurers' Chicken Shack', so I'm not sure about that any more.

 

[Colossus]

I also notice that particular parks do not allow alcohol to be taken out of particular areas. For instance, at Thorpe, alcohol is not permitted outside of Port Atlantis, and at Chessington, the family pub. Though this has recently been replaced with 'Adventurers' Chicken Shack', so I'm not sure about that any more.

Doesn't matter where you consume the alcohol or where you can or cannot take it, whats to stop me getting tanked up at Port Atlantis, then going around the rest of the park being a drunk mess?