Friday, 22 April 2011
-
2-Year-Old Child is Served Alcohol at Popular Restaurant
Last week, Susmita wrote about how a toddler was served alcohol at an Applebee's...and it has happened yet again! Jill VanHeest's two-year-old son Nikolai was mistakingly served sangria instead of an orange juice at an Olive Garden in Lakeland, Florida.
According to Fox8.com, VanHeest said that it took employees about a half-hour to realize that something was wrong. A waiter had come back to her table, removed Nikolai's drink, and said that he needed to get a new one, but did not tell her anything more. She had noticed a problem when her son becacme "woozy" after drinking his orange juice.
"When he came back, I said, 'I need to know what was in the cup in case he has some kind of reaction,''' said VanHeest.
"He said, 'the manager will be right over, but it was tropical sangria.'''
VanHeest found out that the tropical sangria is a mixed drink of orange juice, pineapple, and white wine.
According to myfoxdetroit.com, VanHeest said that her son was acting strangely, misbehaving throughout dinner, and was being loud. She took her son to the hospital after his eyes turned red and dilated. He was given IV fluids and was released a couple of hours later and thankfully he suffered no lasting effects.
Jill Van Heest with her son Nikolai in the emergency room This mix up took place on March 31st and VanHeest's attorney decided to contact the news media in Florida after the recent report of the Michigan Applebee's incident (where an employee mistakenly served a margarita mix drink to a toddler instead of apple juice) surfaced.
Fox8.com reported that Olive Garden will now be mixing their sangria individually to order instead of in batches as they had before. The sangria batches were kept in pitchers and had been the restaurant's only alcoholic beverage that was made in these batches because it was so popular. Similarly, Applebee's said it will now pour apple juice from single-serve containers at their table.
I wonder how many more times this is going to occur
. I find this extremely irresponsible on behalf of the restaurants and the fact that it is happening in more than one restaurant is very alarming.
Do you think the waitress/waiter who brought Nikolai the drink should be fired? Do you think a simple apology is enough from the restaurant to the family? What would you do if this happened to your child?
RecommendRelated Posts
Post a Comment
- Back to ireallylikefood's IReallyLikeFood Site!
- Note: your comment will appear in ireallylikefood's local time zone: GMT -05:00 (Eastern Standard - US, Canada)
About the Author
-
- From: Lindsey
- Name: Lindsey
- About Me: I recently graduated Baruch College with a major in journalism. I love cheese and chocolate...together =) I have two boxers and I hate feet. I am also very random. Oh and check out my blog =) http://himandher-again.blogspot.com
Stats: This Week All Time Posts: 0 28 Views: 0 101715 Comments: 0 663 View all posts by Lindsey
Comments (28)
I drank a margarita when I was six years old...we had just come to the U.S. from Taiwan, and were eating at a Mexican restaurant and my parents thought it was juice haha.
Parents freak out about everything these days. I understand what happened was horrible but they should be happy their son is alive and well. I think a simple apology and a suspension should be fine. My brother drank beer when he was 6 and he was fine.
Say wha? In German it's normal for little kids to be introduced to alcohol at a young age. It's been done before!
I had beer since I was 5. As much as I think it's not right for the waitress to serve the wrong drink in the restaurant, they shouldn't be fired simply because of that.
My mom's family got me drunk on my first Christmas. I was 9 months old. There's pictures of it. However, yes, I would freak. It's one thing to forget and add alcohol to a virgin Pina Colada and quite another to think (as a parent) I better make sure this is just juice. I do think these restaurants should pay some kind of a fee. It's just not good to put alcohol into a child's body like that. It can affect the brain, but probably absolutely nothing bad will happen. It's not the worse thing ever. I'd be pissed as a parent that they didn't tell me right away though!
My mom would've freaked! She wouldn't let me have coffee til I was much older (like 12, I think). I guess it depends on the parents. I would've been grateful that my kid was fine, accepted an apology, but probably calmly tell the restaurant that they really should have a more organized way of handling those type of orders.
Of course excess of alcohol is bad for children, but it's bad for anyone. Even drinking while pregnant isn't guaranteed to cause lasting effects on children- it's a precaution. There are way too many people out there that have taken precaution as an excuse to overreact and freak out.
The restaurant needed to be more proactive about the situation in A) never letting happen and B) resolving the situation with the parents before they feel it necessary to go to the hospital over what was likely about a cup of wine. To say a child was loud, yelling, and misbehaving at a restaurant says nothing because most kids are.
Under reaction from the restaurant (which is typically where people get mad and decide to sue) and an overreaction from the parents (which is just typical)
I don't think anyone should be fired over a mistake. The waiter didn't purposely grab alcohol thinking it'd be hilarious -_- He also fixed his mistake and got the manager.
i worked in a restaurant. mistakes happen! especially when it is super busy. be a waitress one day and see the conditions. you have everyone screaming at you. these parents need to relax. would i be furious if a waitress gave my son alcohol of course. but i don't think he/she should lose their job. most kids are complete brats at restaurants anyways because parents don't want t discipline. and i don't think the kid could die from alcohol. what do these parents want the restaurant to do? stop serving alcohol? i am sure this has happened plenty of times before but it just never made headlines.
Since both of these incidents the resturaunt where I work has since removed kid's cups from behind the bar where juices and frozen kid's drinks are prepared. Corporate is even ordering blenders for the servers to use on the line instead of behind the bar for the frozen kid drinks and shakes.
Olive Garden sucks. Why not make their sangria fresh every time anyway?
I really think the this is rediculas! I understand one mistake, but when it happens more than once then there is a real problem.
Them happening so close together is simply coincidence.I have an 11 month old son. I wouldn't be that upset about my kid getting sangria, juice and white wine, as opposed to a margarita which I'd be pretty pissed about. Either way I'd probably mention getting the law involved and gladly settle for free food there for a while at least. Unless my kid drank enough for it to actually be dangerous to him in which case I probably would call a lawyer and get a decent settlement... I had my first taste at olive garden but I asked my dad for a taste of the strawberry wine he had.
My sister works at a restaurant and I showed her the Applebee's story. She was confused to say the least. She couldn't believe that they could get drinks confused especially since they aren't the same color and they obviously smell completely different. I know the bar makes the alcohol drinks for the servers, but the servers pour the non alcoholic drinks themselves so I don't see how they could get the two confused really. I don't know if it's that big of a deal considering how young some people are when they first drink and drinks at restaurants like that are mostly full of sugar anyways. I'd be freaked out, but I wouldn't bring a lawsuit out of the whole thing.
No, I don't think waiter should be fired - he's a human and mistakes happen. I'd forgive the guy or girl who did it - it can happen to anyone.
As a server myself, I would call it difficult to make such a mistake. They smell different. It's also the bartenders place to pour anything from the bar, so the server was being intrusive grabbing it by himself. I honestly think he should be fired- that mistake will probably cost the company a lot of money. You can't mess up like that and not expect consequences.
Wow, how many times will this happen? I'm surprised people aren't bringing juice boxes from home to give their kids when they go out to eat! Olive Garden should apologize, pay the bill to the emergency room and suspend the server who poured the cocktail. Certainly the server who poured the drink into the kids' plastic cup should notice the difference! Just because the child is ok doesn't mean I think this is acceptable behavior. Perhaps the juices should be poured in the kitchen and not at the bar...or they could just switch to juice boxes/individual bottles as well. I think the restaurant may have handled the situation poorly, saying that the kid was basically a loud drunk. If the restaurant manager had apologized and offered compensation for the kid to be checked out by a doctor immediately would have gotten a different reaction from the parent.
From what I understand the waiter places the order and delivers the food to the table. They get in a large amount of trouble for things they don't do wrong (make food taste bad, or short staffed). Generally speaking, unless the waiter made a mistake with the order it is not that persons fault.
Rather, when getting a drink (that could be mistaken as alchoholic) for a toddler, the waiter can tell the person who does the drinks that "it's for a kid". It'll remind them to be extra careful not to slip up.
If the waiter was the one making the drink, there's no excuse for that. They need to be trained to differentiate between children and adults..by having internal cues. More training, sure...but it's important.
I think that the waiter/waitress who brought Nikolai the drink should be fired. Why? The waiter/waitress should of checked the orders of the people before serving anything!
Anybody else maybe a teensy suspicious of the parents? Remember the "I found a finger in my Wendy's chili" scam lawsuit?
These waitresses and waiter suck! They need to get it together and stop serving babies booze.
Hahaha. I used to work at Olive Garden, I completely hated it there. It's the only place I've ever worked at where everyone acted like a total bitch. The waiters/waitresses/hosts/managers a like. The only cool people were in the kitchen. Doesn't surprise me that they'd fuck up like that too. You have no idea how little of a shit most people there give about customers, they are 100% fake. Act sweet to your face and then call you something I don't feel comfortable writing behind your back.
Of course I'm sure this happens at tons of restaurants (the whole being fake and nasty to your customers thing). Also it might have just been the olive garden I worked at that was specifically full of assholes. But that was my experience working there.
But yeah, I would feel bad for the guy who got fired. Sure there's a slim chance that he's a sicko, but it could have been an honest mistake. I mean I know how Olive Garden works and yes he will be fired. The told us all the time that if we gave someone underage a drink it would cost us our jobs, company policy
I think shit happens sometimes, it's not the first and wont be the last. The servers should pay more attention and parents should too. If it were me I'd nicely suggest they check the pitchers before serving kids but I wouldn't be mad. Unless my kid had some random ass booze allergy, otherwise nothing too serious is likely to happen.
It just seems odd to me that a mistake like this could happen. I mean, 1. wouldn't it smell like alcohol? 2. If it's made in batches, in pitchers, wouldn't the person pouring it notice what they were pouring and that they were pouring it into a childs sippy cup? Something doesn't add up. Either way, that's a huge, HUGE mistake.
Should the person be fired? Depends. Is a simple apology good enough? Maybe. We are talking a hospital visit for the child and parents. I think it's good of these restaurants to have measures in place to stop this from happening again and an apology.
If it were my kid, I'd be upset. Not going to lie. I'd be very upset.
for anyone saying he shouldn't be fired over a mistake , it wasn't a small mistake. it was a pretty big mistake , and to be irresponsible enough not to tell the parents about the mistake as soon as he realized it ? that deserves a firing.
also , the baby was two. not six. so people should calm down with the "i drank my first beer at six!" the parents didn't intentionally give their son this drink and i'm sure they never would have wanted to. so to say that you turned out fine is really pointless because this is something totally different.