Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Discrimination?

Kids congregate in groups, it's a social thing and most of the time it's quite harmless, though in some cases trouble happens, particularly when either showing off or occasionally because they know they are so well protected by the law that there's damn all anyone can do about it.
BBC.
A Kent McDonald's has been criticised for installing a device aimed at deterring groups of young people from congregating outside.
The high pitched sound from the Mosquito can usually only be heard by those under the age of 25.
The children's charity Kidscape said: "We can't have young people treated like pests or animals."
Whilst this is true, we can't have kids treated like animals, unless of course they are behaving like animals.
McDonald's said the device was fitted at its Week Street premises, Maidstone, following feedback from customers.
In 2008 the Children's Commissioner for England called for a ban on the devices, describing them as "degrading and discriminatory".
For "degrading and discriminatory" read effective and it looks like McDonald's have a reasonable reason for using the device as its customers have requested they do something about the kids congregating around the outlet.
In a statement, McDonald's said: "The device is operated by the restaurant management only as a last resort if groups fail to move on after being asked to do so by the duty manager.
"The device is fitted with a timer to switch off automatically after a set period of time."
Seems fair enough to me, it will only be used if nuisance makers won't move on and then it switches itself off automatically.
But Peter Bradley, deputy director of Kidscape, said: "We need to be careful about young people congregating and how that can be assumed to be a problem or to cause trouble. Let's not just make assumptions."
See above, it will only be used if there's a problem.
The Kent Green Party claimed the Mosquito discriminates against young people.
The party's chairman, Stuart Jeffrey, said: "If this was a device for keeping black people, women or the elderly away, McDonald's would rightly be prosecuted, so why should society tolerate discrimination against young people?"
Usual idiot response from the left (Yes the Greens aren't called watermelons for nothing) they aren't discriminating against kids, they are discriminating against troublemakers and whilst it's unfortunate that innocent kids will probably have to move on as well, at least the store is doing something to deal with a problem.
The solution is obviously simple, though it might take some kids a while to get it, don't cause problems outside McDonald's and you won't be moved on.

1 annotations:

thespecialone said...

I think that more should be installed in places where large groups of youngsters tend to gather. Take a group of shops I know; and there is a cashpoint there. An elderly person....oh lets say early 40s (that is elderly to a teenager!) wants to use the cashpoint. He sees a group of teenagers and thinks they are ok, I will use the cashpoint. What he doesn't know is that regularly these large groups of teens (I know that in this place I am talking about it was 50+) used to surround him, using intimidation but not actually meaning or wanting to rob him. This genuinely happened night after night and not just weekends. A local shop eventually employed a security guard. The police were called regularly and got so bad that a dispersal order was issued. The teens were not only intimidating cashpoint users, but also users of the local shop and the take away. They were also regularly drinking at weekends. If one of these devices had been fitted early on, would it have dispersed the kids? Don't know but it may have saved a lot of time and effort. Nowadays it is dead quiet around those shops. Those teens are now probably in or about to start university because I am not talking about a sink estate where this happened. Many of them live in houses I can only dream about affording.