Landlord of ‘child-free’ pub defends exclusion policy

The landlord of a pub that went viral over its sign advertising the venue as “dog-friendly, child-free” has stood by its policy and said he has received messages of support from the local community and internationally.

David Worcester, who runs the Lower Red Lion in St Albans, Hertfordshire, said the sign had been outside the pub for years – but only garnered strong reaction online after a user tweeted a picture of the chalkboard with the comment “found my new local”.

The post, which has been viewed 75m times and received more than 3,400 replies, divided commenters, with one responding: “Why has it become socially acceptable to literally hate children?”

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But Worcester said his pub had received messages of support. “The reaction from the local community has been very positive, the reaction from everywhere further afield has been nothing but positive. I’m getting emails from Australia, an email from Bristol. Everything is positive – the only negativity was on the initial Twitter [post].

“There were some pretty wild accusations. But the only people that were accusing me of that were people that have never been to the pub,” he said, adding that it appeared to be mostly people living abroad.

Worcester told BBC Three Counties Radio that he had “no objection to children in any other pub, ever, I just don’t want them in mine”. He explained that the policy had been in place “for about 11 years” and had been the same at a previous venue he managed.

The pub landlord added: “I just want to create an environment where my customers can sit and relax, it only takes one child to kick off and that spoils it for absolutely everybody.

“We’ve got upwards of 40 pubs in St Albans, all of which are child-friendly, most are dog-friendly, I believe I’m the only one in the area that isn’t.”