Knotts now will be enforcing a Chaperone policy

[disco2000]

Now a McDonald's is getting in on the action....

https://www.timesnownews.com/viral/this-mcdonalds-outlet-has-banned-all-under-18s-from-entering-after-5-pm-knowwhy-article-93247331

[disco2000]

Sorry for the double post, but this should come as no surprise:

https://abc7.com/knotts-berry-farm-chaperone-policy-halloween-fright-fest/12131495/?fbclid=IwAR0CRZeefUwpsD1IkfjSoriwPz-uXxsWk6-4RahAzx0N8UqziM2Ov_wcUT0

[Taylor.B03]

I'd imagine at this point the other CF parks should be safe. However I wouldn't be shocked if it was added to a few more. Fingers crossed for containing it to Knott's and it just being temporary!

[MisterSG1]

What I don’t get is why so many people are adamantly defending a policy, and trying to use legal framework even if the policy is unjust.

Someone here mentioned about the drinking age in Ohio being raised to 21 some time ago, uhhh do you know how that happened? It was and still is coercion by Washington, the feds basically said that if you don’t raise your drinking age to 21, you will lose federal highway funding. I don’t care about alcohol as I have never ever bought a drink in my entire adult life. But it is a very unfair policy. Combine that with the fact that hypothetically, someone’s who’s 18 could face conscription and die for the country, but not be allowed to have a beer.

Jaywalking is a jurisdictional thing, and even in Canada, the highway traffic act in Ontario does say pedestrians have the right of way, but there’s also rules pedestrians need to follow too. Just because they say pedestrians have right of way doesn’t mean one can expect to walk out into the road midblock and expect traffic to stop. Jaywalking in this sense is legal, but you have to do it properly and wait for a gap in traffic, otherwise that could lead to a fine for a pedestrian. Similarly at signalized intersections, the law also states that pedestrians must cross inside the crosswalk and can only begin crossing while the walk signal is displayed. Entering during the dont walk hand flashing is an offence no matter how much time is left in the cycle.

 

 

Before I get ahead of myself, what is the actual benefit to Cedar Fair in making their theme parks R rated? Again you stubbornly seem to miss the point of how incredibly stupid this policy is in the first place. Don’t be shocked if these teens who now have to go with mommy and daddy throughout teen years instead decide to shun the park when they reach the magical age of 18, to literally tell Cedar Fair “Screw you, Charlie Brown”.

[KI Guy]

@MisterSG1Understand that your (clearly) strong views on the rights of minors are not what everyone believes.

You may disagree, but to most people it is just and fair that adulthood has privileges and rights that come with it. Adults are expected to be responsible by way of their life experience and more fully developed brains. Parents/Guardians are expected to take care of minors and to teach them responsibility. Parents/guardians are responsible for much of their teenagers actions until they turn 18. Of course adulthood doesn't look the same for all and there are plenty of adults who still act irresponsibly, but there needs to be an age cutoff somewhere. Right now, legislatures have decided that's 18.

This is how society has always functioned. If you don't like it and want to change it, you are in for a much bigger fight than an amusement park chaperone policy.

The reason for the policy is this:

There are teenagers who have been causing trouble/a bad image for the park. Cedar Fair can legally restrict teenagers from entering without a chaperone. Cedar Fair believes that to most the positives of such a policy outweigh the negatives. Therefore revenues will not decline as they fear it would if such a policy were not put in place.

[disco2000]

It is simply your opinion is it is unjust.... case law and precedence says otherwise... can the laws change at some point - yes absolutely. 

But until then, it is a generally accepted legal policy a company can implement.

They are a private business and can implement whatever policy they want as long as it is legal.  As an example, smoking is allowed outdoors.  The parks are outside (except obviously for their indoor parts) and legally they can say no smoking or vaping within the park and that is their legal right and within their right to kick a person out for violating their legal policy.

You as a consumer can decide if you disagree with a particular policy and then decide whether or not to patronize the business.  If the company sees a decline as a result of said policy, then they will change said policy.

Companies are in business to make money.  Any legal policy they implement takes into consideration the pros and cons of said policy.  If they believe that the overall benefit outweighs the negative, then they will do so.

With the current industry trends leaning towards family-friendly parks, that is where the money is, not unruly teens that are causing trouble and aren't spending money in the park. 

If those same guests turn the magical age of 18 and decide as you say "Screw you, Charlie Brown", well that is probably still an overall benefit for the park because like you said, the age of 18 is just a number, so they would probably continue their poor behavior once turning legal.  They want the well-behaved and properly parented children visiting the park and those positive experiences will encourage these said children to visit the park when they are over 18. 

The unruly teens causing trouble and making a family decide that for their families safety, they will skip the park is not what the park wants.

And let's face it, since the parks are now cashless, it is easy for a park to determine if the guests they kicked out spent any money in the park....

 

 

 

[BoddaH1994]

We lost like three weeks of 10:00 closings last year because of “unruly teens.” They said it was a staffing thing but… come on. The schedule was changed the next day. All of us here pay good money for the products we receive (as in, Kings Island). The fact that it has already had to be truncated once because of some bad apples is more justification enough for me. I know there are a lot of good kids out there, but if the parks can narrow in on the trouble causers as much as possible instead of having to “punish” all of the guests then good for them. 

[FUN&ONLY!]

On 8/21/2022 at 3:44 PM, BoddaH1994 said:

We lost like three weeks of 10:00 closings last year because of “unruly teens.” They said it was a staffing thing but… come on. The schedule was changed the next day. All of us here pay good money for the products we receive (as in, Kings Island). The fact that it has already had to be truncated once because of some bad apples is more justification enough for me. I know there are a lot of good kids out there, but if the parks can narrow in on the trouble causers as much as possible instead of having to “punish” all of the guests then good for them. 

We cannot just assume the late closings were cut due to the incident. Around the same time many Cedar Fair parks were cutting back hours and even days. Remember when Cedar Point was only open 5 days a week last season due to poor staffing? Staffing was really bad at Kings Island, too. It just wasn’t nearly bad enough to cut days. Kings Island may have had appropriate staffing for weekend-only operations early in the season, but when weekday operations started, the workforce had to be spread thin. I believe weekday operations was about to start when Kings Island cut hours, so staffing may have been a legitimate reason for cutting hours.

[robintodd]

On 8/20/2022 at 10:36 AM, MisterSG1 said:

What I don’t get is why so many people are adamantly defending a policy, and trying to use legal framework even if the policy is unjust.

Someone here mentioned about the drinking age in Ohio being raised to 21 some time ago, uhhh do you know how that happened? It was and still is coercion by Washington, the feds basically said that if you don’t raise your drinking age to 21, you will lose federal highway funding. I don’t care about alcohol as I have never ever bought a drink in my entire adult life. But it is a very unfair policy. Combine that with the fact that hypothetically, someone’s who’s 18 could face conscription and die for the country, but not be allowed to have a beer.

Jaywalking is a jurisdictional thing, and even in Canada, the highway traffic act in Ontario does say pedestrians have the right of way, but there’s also rules pedestrians need to follow too. Just because they say pedestrians have right of way doesn’t mean one can expect to walk out into the road midblock and expect traffic to stop. Jaywalking in this sense is legal, but you have to do it properly and wait for a gap in traffic, otherwise that could lead to a fine for a pedestrian. Similarly at signalized intersections, the law also states that pedestrians must cross inside the crosswalk and can only begin crossing while the walk signal is displayed. Entering during the dont walk hand flashing is an offence no matter how much time is left in the cycle.

 

 

Before I get ahead of myself, what is the actual benefit to Cedar Fair in making their theme parks R rated? Again you stubbornly seem to miss the point of how incredibly stupid this policy is in the first place. Don’t be shocked if these teens who now have to go with mommy and daddy throughout teen years instead decide to shun the park when they reach the magical age of 18, to literally tell Cedar Fair “Screw you, Charlie Brown”.

Actually a person below 21 can consume alcohol with the commander's written authorization (kind of like you're parents can give you a beer when you're 18 in their house with their supervision).  However the person is not able to drive with ANY amount of alcohol in their system.  In addition, are you suggesting that someone who goes through basic training comes out with the same thoughts and attitudes of an 18 year old who hasn't?  I would suggest the person who goes through basic has matured a little quicker than someone who is in the structure of their parents house, especially in this day and age.  Discipline in the home simply isn't what it used to be.  So many teens nowadays threaten their parents with lawsuits and, at times, police and courts back them up.  Sorry, my home, my rules and if the government has anything to say about it then they can house and feed them (which surprisingly they don't want to do).  If a parent is going to take responsibility when an underage drinking party happens at their house when they are not at home then the parents need to have the ability to dole out punishments and enforce rules as they see fit.  (barring of course harsh physical abuse, etc.)  My point is sometimes a hands off 'kids will be kids' attitude has been taken too far in recent years.  Spare the rod, spoil the child.  

As far as what they might say to Cedar Fair at the age of 18.  Cedar Fair is not making the parks R rated.  Teens cursing, fighting and destroying property are creating a non PG environment for younger guests and not giving them an appropriate role model of how to act in public.  The teens themselves perpetuate their own problem, they are their own worst enemy.  If someone who reaches the age of 18+ can't understand that then frankly I wouldn't want them in the park because they have not yet reached an age of maturity of how to act in public yet alone have children of their own to bring to the park.

When I was young (yes, I'm old) they had Grad Nights at KI.  These were basically nights that were closed to the GP (including pass holders) and were for seniors (who would get tickets at school) and their guests.  There was ALOT of security in and out of the park.  As you can imagine large amounts of alcohol would be consumed in the parking lot and then some of the teens would stumble around the park making a**es of themselves.  Of those, some could control themselves and some couldn't (Tower Johnny anyone?)  Point is they don't do that anymore and the reason for that isn't the 90% that followed the rules.  It was a decision by the park that it simply wasn't financially worth doing anymore and probably the press around the event with incidents like TJ didn't help either.  Seems to me that even though this 'right of passage' event for seniors around the area has been cancelled, not many people have decided to say "Screw you".  

 

[BoddaH1994]

On 8/27/2022 at 12:56 AM, FUN&ONLY! said:

We cannot just assume the late closings were cut due to the incident. Around the same time many Cedar Fair parks were cutting back hours and even days. Remember when Cedar Point was only open 5 days a week last season due to poor staffing? Staffing was really bad at Kings Island, too. It just wasn’t nearly bad enough to cut days. Kings Island may have had appropriate staffing for weekend-only operations early in the season, but when weekday operations started, the workforce had to be spread thin. I believe weekday operations was about to start when Kings Island cut hours, so staffing may have been a legitimate reason for cutting hours.

Right, we can’t know for certain. 
 

But the fights were on a Saturday and the announcement was the following day. So, I mean, come on…

Plus, have you noticed that on certain nights they have tons of security, full timers, heck even lifeguards wearing the yellow vests to create a sense of presence. So the staffing argument is probably very true, but there are some tight subheadings under it. 

[Coasterteam]

1 hour ago, BoddaH1994 said:

Right, we can’t know for certain. 
 

But the fights were on a Saturday and the announcement was the following day. So, I mean, come on…

Plus, have you noticed that on certain nights they have tons of security, full timers, heck even lifeguards wearing the yellow vests to create a sense of presence. So the staffing argument is probably very true, but there are some tight subheadings under it. 

I feel like staffing this year at KI was much better. Given they had some stuff closed during the week, a lot more of the shops/registers are open on weekends to deal with increased crowds. Shoutout to KI for always running as many trains as possible on their coasters no matter the park crowd level. 

[disco2000]

Revision to the policy:

 

[FUN&ONLY!]

I assume the policy failed if it is completely gone now. Either it did not prevent as much unruly conduct as Knott’s Berry Farm hoped or it hurt attendance. My bet is on the later.

[disco2000]

Or this is the part of the season that historically has not had those types of issues so they are diverting those resources to other things.  Time will tell if it comes back.

[brenthodge]

On 2/3/2023 at 5:22 PM, disco2000 said:

Or this is the part of the season that historically has not had those types of issues so they are diverting those resources to other things.  Time will tell if it comes back.

I’d say more this. 

[FUN&ONLY!]

I can across this thread on Twitter. It appears that Knott’s Berry Farm has cut A LOT of entertainment options recently. The cuts are especially interesting because they came right before the park’s usually super popular Boysenberry Festival, which usually includes additional entertainment offerings and not less. With rumors of very low attendance so far this year, maybe the cuts are a result of low attendance? Does anyone know more?

 

[Dan]

On 2/3/2023 at 5:22 PM, disco2000 said:

Or this is the part of the season that historically has not had those types of issues so they are diverting those resources to other things.  Time will tell if it comes back.

Is it cold in LA right now?