Theme parks take guest safety serious, but sometimes they might take it too far. According to the Daily Mail, a man was denied admission to Puxton Park in the UK, for trying to go and see the Falconer’s exhibit. What was he doing that was so wrong? He tried to enter the park as a single person, without children. While that seems like a very minor infraction, it’s apparently a policy on the park’s website. It’s all, according to the site, in effort to curb pedophiles in the park.
The park’s official website (click here) strictly prohibits any single men or women without children from entering the park without children. Browsing the website, the most intense attraction in the park is the “red rooster slide of death”. That invariable thrill machine is a slide that is about 10 feet high with a 45 degree incline. In short, there’s no reason for anyone over the age of 3 to WANT to go into the park. However, the park does have a great Falconer program, and does demonstrations daily. The gentleman in question was an avid bird watcher, and had visited the park with his grandchildren often.
According to the gentleman, there were no signs in the park, brochures or anywhere to be seen.
While this is a UK park, and we emphasize on the word park, it has no bearing on what we do here. However, we have had several reports of single men being asked to leave a park, ride or even hotel, simply because they have no children with them.
According to the article, Puxton Park claims that the policy is in place to prevent pedophiles. That leaves a 2nd door open. Does that mean the park is insinuating that all single people have the potential to be pedophiles? Or is it simply that saying that all pedophiles are single? Another question, could they be simply trying to keep gays and lesbians out of the park, as traditionally those couples do not have children. It leaves the door wide open for discrimination lawsuits. The park insists that their policy is similar to the policies
The question becomes, is this a fair practice? Is it okay to automatically assume that a single man is automatically up to no good when he is alone in a family friendly theme park?
We’ve heard stories of people being asked to leave certain areas of a park because parents were “creeped out” by a single guy, and have even experienced first hand this type of behavior at an Orlando family channel based hotel. Have you ever experienced anything like this in a U.S. park? Do you even think this is fair practice at an amusement, theme, or Puxton Park?
We’d like to know your thoughts.
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