Who needs a gun at Chuck E Cheese?

[VAopencarry]

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Seems the kiddie clubhouse is a dangerous place to be. Some locations are hiring armed security. They aren't being robbed, it is because of the patrons!!

http://cityguides.msn.com/citylife/cityarticle.aspx?cp-documentid=15819667


By Anna Prior, Wall Street Journal
In Brookfield, Wis., no restaurant has triggered more calls to the police department since last year than Chuck E. Cheese's.

Chuck E. Cheese's: not all fun and games.
Officers have been called to break up 12 fights, some of them physical, at the child-oriented pizza parlor since January 2007. The biggest melee broke out in April, when an uninvited adult disrupted a child's birthday party. Seven officers arrived and found as many as 40 people knocking over chairs and yelling in front of the restaurant's music stage, where a robotic singing chicken and the chain's namesake mouse perform.

Chuck E. Cheese's bills itself as a place "where a kid can be a kid." But to law-enforcement officials across the country, it has a more particular distinction: the scene of a surprising amount of disorderly conduct and battery among grown-ups.

"The biggest problem is you have a bunch of adults acting like juveniles," says Town of Brookfield Police Capt. Timothy Imler. "There's a biker bar down the street, and we rarely get calls there."

It isn't clear exactly how often fights break out at Chuck E. Cheese's 538 locations. Richard Huston, executive vice president of marketing for the chain's parent company, CEC Entertainment Inc. of Irving, Texas, describes their occurrence as "atypical," saying he has heard of "four or five significant adult altercations" this year. But in some cities, law-enforcement officials say the number of disruptions at their local outlet is far higher than at nearby restaurants, and even many bars. "We've had some unfortunate and unusual altercations between adults at these locations," Mr. Huston says. "Even one is just way too many."

"I thought they were going to start attacking me," says Sheri Kellar-Raab, the first officer who responded.

For more of the article follow the link above.

 

[Dom]

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Old, but probably the worst incident at a Chuck E. Cheese. Dunlap is still on Colorado's death row (was the only person on it for a long time).

Chuck E Cheese shootings latest in series of restaurant attacks Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 3, 1994 by Ron Ruggless AURORA, Colo.

A gunman on a shooting spree at the Chuck E Cheese restaurant in this Denver suburb shot and killed four employees and wounded a fifth just as the restaurant was closing Dec. 14. A kitchen worker, fired a week before, was charged with the murders.

"There was nothing that could have prevented this from a security standpoint," said Woody Berry, director for operations and a senior vice president at Showbiz Pizza Time in Irving, Texas, owner of the Chuck E Cheese unit. "This was the act of a lone, obviously deranged man," Berry said. "It's sad to think that it could happen anywhere, but it could."

Nathan Dunlap, 19, the fired kitchen worker, was being held on four counts of first-degree murder, Aurora police reported. Authorities also recovered a small-caliber semi-automatic handgun believed used in the shootings. Dunlap's 16-year-old girl friend, whose name was not being released, was jailed and charged with aiding and abetting the crime by helping hide the suspect and the weapon.

The gunman entered the restaurant at about 10 p.m., just after closing, on a Tuesday night, and be confronted and shot two workers, shot a third in a hallway, wounded another in the kitchen and then killed the manager in her office at the back of the restaurant. Killed in the shooting rampage were: Margaret Kohlerb, 50, the night manager; Colleen O'Conner, 17; Sylvia Crowell, 20; and Benjamin Grant, 17. The other victim, Bobby Stevens, 20, was hospitalized with gunshot wounds to the jaw. Stevens had escaped after being wounded and ran to nearby apartments to call police.

"We in the restaturant industry work real hard to provide safe and secure buildings, and we are no exception, but in this case there was no way to predict, anticipate or guarantee against such behavior," said Berry of Showbiz, which operates 209 of the 319 Chuck E Cheese restaurants nationwide. "It's just an exceptional, horrible act."

David Meaux, chief executive and president of the 38-unit Joyce's Submarine Sandwhich shops, which has 18 stores in the Denver area, said the shooting "has made us irate -- the sheer horror of it. "It hasn't really impacted our business," he said. "We have a store within a mile and a half of that Chuck E Cheese. But because we're fast food and 85 percent of it is takeout, we really haven't been impacted. Meaux said he did think a lot of customers in the Denver areas were scared to take their kids to a sit-down restaurant. "We're much more watch-ful and much more cautious now," Meaux said. "We are watching people as they come in and getting ready to duck. It's really sad."

At Bennigan's a few miles from the shooting spree site, employee Russ Hardy said the shooting had shaken the staff. "It's made us all nervous, but it was on incident that people didn't have much control over," he said. Showbiz has three restaurants in the Denver area -- the 250-seat unit in Aurora and others in Inglewood and Arvada. "Our concern right now is first and foremost for the families of the victims," Berry said. "Our entire effort with our regional manager, Brad West, and our district manager, Fred Hopkins, was one of a mission to support and help the families of the victims first and then our employees at that restaurant and surrounding restaurants."

Employees of the Aurora restaurant were placed at the other two restaurants. Berry said, adding that the store is closed "indefinitely." The Aurora store employed 55 people. "We immediately set up counseling centers for the employees, Berry said, "and secured professional counseling there through a health-care provider in Aurora." Counseling sessions began on Wednesday after the Tuesday night shooting spree and were attended by employees of the other units as well.

He also said the company worked with the families of the victims immediately after the shooting and plans to continue to do so. "We tried to provide anything the families needed and to make personal contact in port and assistance that we could possibly provide," Berry said. The company paid medical and burial expenses as well as the cost of flying in relatives of the victims.

"This crime really transcended Chunk E and reached out into the community and the nation," Berry said. "It was senseless and no rhyme or reason to why anybody would do this. We are just devastated for those victims and their families." Berry, who has been with Showbiz seven months, spend a week in Aurora to handle the crisis. "What I found in handling the crisis was that it doesn't matter what you're title is or what your job is, it's strictly a human event," he said. "It's strictly person to person and heart to heart."

COPYRIGHT 1994 Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning

 

[Task Force 16]

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The obvious solution to the violence problem at these establishments is to ban adults.

I thought it funny that Brookfield Police Capt said that the biker bar down the street was more pieceful that the pizza place.

 

[canadian]

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Task Force 16 wrote:

I thought it funny that Brookfield Police Capt said that the biker bar down the street was more pieceful that the pizza place.

I wonder if the guys at the biker bar are all armed...

 

[r6-rider]

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i bet having their kids around brings out their instinct to protect them which makes them more aggressive toward everyone else... mix that with alcohol = disaster. there was another time where an adult started telling a kid to get off a machine because he/she was on it too long and wanted their kid to play on it. as you could imagine things got bad quick

 

[ne1]

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THINGS AREN'T GETTING ANY BETTER:

http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/123130502694810.xml&coll=1

 

[AbNo]

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canadian wrote:

Task Force 16 wrote:

I thought it funny that Brookfield Police Capt said that the biker bar down the street was more pieceful that the pizza place.

I wonder if the guys at the biker bar are all armed...

I bet we could ask Heinlein.

 

[Alexcabbie]

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r6-rider wrote:

i bet having their kids around brings out their instinct to protect them which makes them more aggressive toward everyone else... mix that with alcohol = disaster. there was another time where an adult started telling a kid to get off a machine because he/she was on it too long and wanted their kid to play on it. as you could imagine things got bad quick

A kiddie joint with a liquor license?? Hol-eeeee mackerel.

My dad was president of the Huber Heights Amateur Baseball Association for a time and idiot agressive parents who wanted more play time for their talentless little imge of their own egos were a constant thorn in his side.