Babes in Bars

Bar establishments used to encourage the patronage of young, attractive customers — but lately they’ve been putting their collective foot down when it comes to the company of cute babies, going so far as to ban parents with strollers in a number of New York City-area bars.  Some bans are all-day, all-night, while others are instituted after 5 p.m.  As you can imagine, this has sparked a debate almost as passionate as Angelina v. Jen, only these t-shirts would read:  “TEAM ANTI-BLOB” and “TEAM BREEDER.”  This is also the kind of debate where you are CERTAIN babies do not belong in bars… until you become a parent of said baby and mama needs a drink.

Mr. Candy and I, being fans of the occasional drink, do not take Miss Skye to hardcore bars — we’re saving that for her first birthday — but rather to restaurants that have bars.  Even then, we usually look for outdoor seating (an advantage of living in L.A.) so we have plenty of space to spread out and can make a quick getaway if Miss Skye very LOUDLY lets us know she’d rather be watching Colbert at home instead.

More often than not, we’ll just stay in and have a glass of wine after our Colbert Lover has gone to bed.  But sometimes, oh sometimes, Mommy and Daddy need to re-familiarize themselves with LIFE ON THE OUTSIDE.  Just a taste of it satiates our repressed, inner party animals for months.  It’s not like we stay anywhere past the ungodly hour of 7:00 p.m., anyway.

Here’s a million-dollar idea (spoken like an alcoholic mother):  a family-friendly bar franchise.  No stroller?  No Bjorn?  No entry!   I tell ya, that place will be ROCKING every weekend from 4 – 5 — at which point we’ll all be ready to go home and let our heads hit the pillow.  But, oh, how we will party for that one, pre-dusk hour…!

Okay, maybe not so much party, but more like hold our still-mostly-full martini glasses and reminisce about how we used to be able to handle more than two teaspoons of liquor — but, hey, it would still be nice to have a public place where we can do that, too.  *SIGH*  I guess that’s what Applebee’s is for.