12 Year Old Served Booze at Livonia Restaurant
As a parent my heart jumped a bit when I saw this headline: 12 Year Old Served Booze at Livonia Restaurant
12 year old served booze at Livonia Restaurant
The original story appeared on Fox 2 about a family going to Outback Steakhouse in Livonia when 12 year old Mekyle Cureton ordered a virgin strawberry daiquiri (something he typically orders) – he said this drink “didn’t taste normal” and that his “heart started beating as I was drinking it”. His family doesn’t drink, so they couldn’t tell if the daiquiri had alcohol in it, so the asked their server and the bartender confirmed the mistake.
What happened next?
Mekyle ending up being taken to a local hospital after he began not feeling well, and we’re glad to report he’s alright (he was given Tylenol and woke up the next day with a hangover). The folks at Outback Steakhouse in Livonia have issued a statement saying their “bartenders and staff have been retrained to ensure this does not happen again”. Outback also said they take the situation “very seriously and are thankful that the child involved was not seriously injured”.
How often does this happen in the United States?
We were looking into incidents of kids accidentally served alcohol at restaurants, while no exact numbers exist – there are plenty of example of it happening…like last year when a family in Atlanta went to a Sugar Factory and ordered drinks for the adults and juice for the kids…only to be served shots for everyone.
What would you do as a parent?
I kept reading the headline “12 year old served booze at Livonia restaurant” and wondering how I’d react. The family has been very gracious and stated they hope it never happens again – Outback Steakhouse has apologized (obviously taking care of the meal and ensuring this doesn’t happen again).
I’m not sure how mad I’d get. We had an incident like this with our son years ago when he fell on an outdoor play area at a local restaurant in Auburn Hills (no longer open btw), we understood there’s a danger when your kids play on these things (heck, they had a sign). So when we went to the manager and said we needed a towel to clean up our son (Adam split his chin but was okay otherwise) – the managers first response was “soooooo, are you going to keep your reservation or not?”.
NOT what you want to hear as a parent. Show a little sympathy and try to make things right. Just my two cents.
