Jeff Baker, the owner, says he “could use one more bartender, and probably two more cooks”. He hasn’t found takers in over a year of running “help wanted” ads, so he’s made do by working extra shifts in the kitchen and paring back the menu.
He had to accept his own shitty offer. Beautiful
Honestly, there are a few jobs that make sense for teenagers to get some spending money, and that’s fine: things like cashiering a grocery store or sports game. With our enforced 21 year drinking limit and most places having open container laws we stigmatize alcohol more than I would like, including this. It’s not like a teenager hasn’t seen beer before.
HOWEVER, part of our strict laws include penalizing employees personally if they serve someone underage. So are we going to exempt these minors from those penalties? I suspect not…
When I worked at a movie theater we served alcohol, it was a pain in the ass calling a manager every time someone wanted a bottle of wine. This could lead to a poor direction, but still, it was an inconvenience.
Kids serving booze to kids is part of the genius. Get southern kids stupid drunk, turn them into alcoholics, kill their shot at getting liberalized at a college, mess up their brains and get them to vote conservative in 4 years time.
Lol the only way they can get gen Z to vote conservative
Get kids in front of drunk men to normalise hitting on kids.
deleted by creator
It’s probably because it’s a bar in a town of like 300 people.
My wife bartended at 16 in a town in Wisconsin with 300 people.
Does she look back fondly on that experience?
Like, if you ask her, would she say she preferred doing that over normal 16 yr old things like studying, hanging with friends, or doing sports?
My guess is that it would be a bittersweet or poor memory for her, and that given the choice she would have preferred to not have to work at a bar at 16.
Note: IM NOT SAYING she shouldn’t have had a job if she wanted one. Having a job as a teen teaches you a lot of things and prepares you for a “real job” in a low risk environment.
Myself, I worked at a pool first teaching lessons, then becoming a lifeguard when I was old enough. I was on the swim team so I was already there for 2-3 hours per day during the week, and hung around most of the day all summer anyway, so getting paid to do stuff I was already comfortable doing was not a stretch.
I gained valuable skills, I know CPR, Rescue breathing, first aid skills, how to deal with neck/back injuries, etc. I also had fun working in an environment where I could have friends and peers all going thru the same life experiences.
I am just concerned that this kind of environment doesn’t exist in a bar in Wisconsin.
She did those things too. It was a small town.
She worked 2 nights a week and made extra cash, plus got bartending experience. Really not a big deal.
Teens working isn’t inherently exploitation. Some people don’t mind 8hrs/week as a teenager. On the other hand, I did. No fuckin way I was working.
America, what is you doing? Get your legal drining age to a reasonable age first FFS.
A 14 year old can serve alcohol for seven years before they’re legally allowed to drink any? Thats fucked.
That’s your issue? Not that 14 year olds shouldn’t be working in bars, where hours interfere with school and growing brains properly, and pervs get pervier as they get drunker? Not that child labour is bad?
Can I not be upset at both? Not sure how what I said seemed like an approval of 14yo working in bars, but go off.
The drinking age is fine. If anything, it should be raised to 25 so that older college kids can’t buy booze for younger ones. Alcohol is a poison; let your brain finish developing first before you start abusing it. And before you call me a prude, I drink several times a week. (And smoke weed, of course.)
Like the other person said, you should be more concerned over the child labor issue. Bars already have issues with drunk assholes hitting on and groping servers; now imagine the server that is getting groped is your daughter who just barely entered high school.
State governments should instead provide incentives to business owners to pay their workers a livable wage, like tax credits and a higher minimum wage.
Furthermore, if a business cannot afford to pay it’s lowest level employees a $40K salary ($19/hr; the bare minimum needed for the average American to afford a home and all the basic necessities), then their business model is unsustainable and they should shut down.
You don’t learn to be responsible around alcohol by not having any access to it and then being able to buy hard liqour right away. The stories i heard both about college drinking and highschool drinking from people who spent a year in the US were both hilarious and frightening. In Germany teenagers can buy beer and wine with 16. Hard booze and sweet drinks, where you don’t taste the alcohol are 18+. Most people are getting in touch with alcohol when they are 14-16 with their parents present. Having a glass of sparkling wine for new years, having a beer with their parents at birthdays etc.
This way people learn what they can and cannot take, how easy it is to get drunk on booze and how to look out for signs of having drunk too much. Without the criminal punishment, that the US loves to shove down peoples throat, they also feel safe to get help if someone is suspected of having alcohol poisoning.
Id wish my country would make the legal drinking age 16 so that… oh wait it already is XD
Conservatives have found yet another way to groom teenagers. “Oh, it’s fine. She’s used to it. She works here. Hey, you like what you see? Let me sneak you a shot…”
For conservatives, every accusation is a confession.
I’m horrified only because you’re speaking the truth.
You shouldn’t have a job at the age of 14, let alone have one in a bar. I’m not sure who’s worse- the self serving gop or parents that would allow their kids to work in that environment
I disagree with the no job at all mindset. Teenagers working a Saturday job or something similar with low hours to put their own money in their pocket is good for their development and for understanding the value of money relative to work, budgeting, etc, which far too many people enter adulthood still not familiar with. Probably shouldn’t be pulling pints in a bar though.
14-year-olds often aren’t even in high school yet. That is too young to be working a real job.
Nah. It’s really not and plenty of them are plenty mature enough to handle simple shit. I washed dishes and did blue berry reading at 14. Low risk, brought in extra money for my hobbies, saved up and got my my first car, taught me the value of money and physical labor. All extremely positive factors in developing my youth.
Sorry, why should a middle schooler be doing physical labor? This sounds like nightmare capitalism.
Sure, if you ignore all of human history it sounds like nightmare capitalism.
All of human history before capitalism? That makes no sense. How could you have a nightmare form of capitalism before it even existed? Get it together, dude.
We live in capitalism. Therefore, making life worse makes this a worse version of capitalism. Get it now?
Your argument is really “we did it before, so it’s fine”? We did a ton of things before that aren’t ok. Historical usage of a thing doesn’t make it ok.
No. Children working existed before capitalism, you’re grasping straws coming up with that conclusion of what I said.
What? It’s only two years off finishing senior school and going off to college/sixth form.
This is about the U.S. based on the article and you are talking about how school works in a completely different country. In the U.S., middle school is a step between elementary and high school for kids age 12-14 who are too mature for elementary school but not mature enough to be treated with real responsibility yet.
Expecting a child, and they are children, to go out and earn a living at 14 is ridiculous. Especially when it will be a horrible entry-level low-skill miserable job that will just make them unhappy.
Bollox, I was working from about 13 to put some dough in my pocket as my parents weren’t exactly rich. Didn’t do me any harm.
I was abandoned by my parents, didn’t do me any harm. Guess child abandonment should be legal according to your logic.
I mean, it is right? Kids get taken into care all the time.
drop drinking age to 18
That will never happen in the United States, in fact their is a push to increase the age to smoke and drink to 26.
So veterans can be 8 years into improperly treated PTSD before being allowed a fucking beer?
So kids at college parties are going hard on the booze they smuggled in, instead of drinking a few beer and calling it a night?
This is insane. The legal buying age of alcohol shouldn’t be later, than the age at which you are allowed to do everything else as a self responsible addult.
And that is leaving alone the fact, how the US is punishing the teenagers for posession of alcohol, instead of punishing the adults, that got it to them. So the law says it thinks they cannot be responsible around alcohol yet. So then they go to punish the people, who are not responsible around it yet according to the law. So they make people take responsibility, for something the law denies them being able to take responsibility, irrespective of the fact if they actually could.
That is why other countries rightfully dont punish teenagers criminally, but instead focus on the adults around them having to be responsible for the teens not getting alcohol in their hands.
Because they can pay kids less than minimum wage.
I’ve never heard of this before, but I looked it up and it’s sort of true in Wisconsin:
From https://dwd.wisconsin.gov/er/laborstandards/workpermit/minoremployment.htm:
Minimum Wage for minors is $7.25 per hour. Employers may pay an “Opportunity Wage” of $5.90 per hour for the first 90 days of employment. On the 91st day, the wage must increase to $7.25 per hour
So yeah, for 90 days they can get away with paying less than minimum wage. For tipped jobs, the minimum wage is $2.33, and the “opportunity” tipped minimum wage is 2.13.
Everything about this is back-asswards.
That 90 days isn’t just random either. It happens to be the length of summer vacation for most kids here in the US. Perfect for exploiting them on their summer break!
Gonna go to camp this summer little Johnny and Jane? Fuck no you’re not, off to the factory with you, and here’s your six dollars (that’s like a dollar an hour!).
90 days, 3 months, of summer break? That is as long as the whole summer. That has to be wrong.
as i have said before, republicans seem to just oppose anything the democrats are for out of spite or something, its beyond a deranged level of stupidity
Tbh I think that’s just American politics in a nutshell actually that’s not even a nutshell that’s just how politics is they both make decisions based entirely on opposing the other side our system simply doesn’t work
Idk i dont think its that bad. If i employed a child in a bar id punch/expell anyone that touched it. Serving drinks is definitely a cool job and the kid gets first contact with a wide range of people. but also i am legally allowed alcohol at 16 so…
If a place of business can serve 14 year olds, I see no reason why an employee that age shouldn’t be able to serve everything on the menu. Either it’s safe environment for the age or it isn’t.
