My father never took me to the pub.
For his father and mother, the bar was a place of addiction. Den of degenerate people. Penguins and losers alike who spent the day playing pool and smoking unfiltered cigarettes with hairy pork rinds.
In my family, this story began when I, as an adult, started carrying the old man and the old woman to pubs, bodegas, bars and dives.
It was very curious to see them lose their fear when times changed. Towards the end of the last century, the beer industry poured a lot of money into revamping the bar’s image.
The lair of cachaceiros gave way to the bar that serves nice drinks, meals at fair prices and snacks. The crackling now comes shaved.
This is a São Paulo vision. In other capitals –notably Rio and Belo Horizonte–, the bar was never meant to scare the holy Brazilian family.
The bar is the space of democracy. From the janitor who has a coffee before work, from the company’s lunch crowd, from the lonely old man in the neighborhood, from friends who leave work and need to free the demons.
Place to spend lazy afternoons with the kids, why not? I always took mine.
There are those who disagree. And it’s not the Catholic ladies’ league. They are bar owners who welcome gay, straight, black, white, fat, macumbeiro, old, dog, headless mule, curupira, everyone. Everyone but a child.
Barred child at the hipsters bar
On Sunday (3), the lawyer Marcelle Cerutti was prevented from entering the bar Miúda, in Barra Funda, with her son. It is an old parking lot with a gravel floor, without a roof and without snacks to accompany the booze in the gravel.
Miúda attracts a hipster audience, young (or not so) who cut their own bangs without a mirror, wear fanny packs and funny sandals. Even they breed sometimes, but they can’t take their kids to the bar in the afternoon.
The attitude got really bad. Marcelle sounded the trumpet on social media, and half the world came to her support.
At first, Miúda’s partners put their foot down. They released a statement reiterating that their bar “is not a child-friendly place”.
Old man, it’s even scary to think that the kids could pass through there. Would someone baptize their artisan soda with tochico? Is there a table in the back where people play Russian roulette for real money?
Obviously not. What it does have is a deep dislike for children, something very common among the descolex boys who consider themselves inclusive and plural.
Change “children” to “wheelchair users”. Now imagine the scandal if an establishment barred them at the door on the grounds of lack of adequate structure. “Sorry ma’am, your chair’s wheel is going to spin on the gravel.”
The bar’s response generated almost unanimous disapproval, and only then did the owners change their stance. They returned to Instagram to say that they reflected too much and that they would pause activities to rethink the space, returning soon with a bounce house and a ball pit. The toys part is a lie.
Did he need to have his reputation almost destroyed to give his arm to twist?
The good side of this unfortunate episode is the realization that everyone, even the hipster from São Paulo with crooked bangs, has already understood that the bar is a place for children.
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