A Judge's Daughter

I used to work the closing shift a few years ago, and did this for about four years straight.
Our store closed at 4:00 a.m., and although I wasn't crazy about my hours, it worked out very
well for me. I was a single parent, struggling to make ends meet, and this allowed me to be at
home when my son was home from school. Plus, I worked only five minutes away from where I lived,
so if the babysitter had a problem, she could always get a hold of me in a hurry.

My employees were great. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to work with. Each of them
knew the tasks of their jobs, did their jobs without being reminded, and we had a lot of fun besides.
But despite a wonderful crew, this particular store was probably the worst I've ever had to close.
We were having problems with the neighborhood high school and college age kids. They wanted to
use our restaurant and parking lot as their own personal hang out, especially on Friday and Saturday
nights. This would not have been a problem except that they were rude, obnoxious, and most of the
time so noisy that we could not hear our customers at the drive-thru. Sometimes they were violent,
getting into fights, and innocent by-standers ended up getting hurt. I was calling the police on
the average of three to four times every weekend trying to get help.

I am only one person, and I can only do so much by myself, and I've often wondered if anyone else
ever understood that. I had a restaurant to run, and I could not be inside and outside at the same
time. I would get calls from angry residents of the neighboring apartment complex because of the
noise these kids were making out on our lot. I have been called every name in the book by these
people because as far as they were concerned I was "allowing" this. Sometimes I was expected to
be able to snap my fingers and make these people disappear, but unfortunately, things don't work
that way.

These kids were killing our business. Our regular customers when driving by our restaurant would
see these kids hanging out on our lot, and they'd keep driving. They wouldn't bother coming into
our restaurant anymore as long as these large groups of teenagers were there.

One summer, these kids formed a human chain across our parking lot, preventing anyone to enter, and
anyone from leaving. Sometimes they bounced on the cars of customers sitting in our drive-thru, and
here we go again. Another situation where I had to deal with irrate customers who expected me to
perform miracles. I had everyone and his uncle looking to me to do something about it, and I was
actually trying to. But like I said before, there is only so much one person can do alone. I had
called the police many times over, and even they were limited on what they could do. It got to the
point where the police department I think got sick of hearing from me. The dispatcher started asking
me, "Well, did you tell these kids to leave?" And I don't know how many times I've "gone off" on
the dispatcher and told her, "Excuse me? There are about seventy to a hundred kids out there right
now, and seeing how violent they have gotten in the past, there is no way in hell that I am going
to attempt to handle this situation by myself!"

I had complained many times to my boss, and in turn she complained to the franchisee who owned the
restaurant. He, too, couldn't understand why I couldn't get the situation under control. But, just
as I was getting ready to quit because I was finally at the point where I couldn't take much more,
the franchisee was sued over an incident that had take place in one of his other stores. So, finally,
he hired security officers to help keep the situation under control. This actually did the trick,
although it took a little while, and then we stopped having these problems altogether.

One evening, one of our usual groups of kids came in, and as always, they were getting a little too
rowdy. So, our security officer and I went around and told everyone they had to leave. Those who
had made a purchase and sat quietly amongst themselves not bothering anyone else, were allowed to
stay. Some of these kids put up a little bit of a fuss, but eventually they all left.

One small group of kids -- two girls and two boys -- were especially not happy about this. They
went home whining to mom and dad. About fifteen minutes later, I got this phone call from one of
the mothers screaming, "Do you realize who you just kicked out of your restaurant?! A judge's
daughter! A judge's daughter!"

"I don't care who she is! When she is in this restaurant, she will abide by the same rules that
everyone else is expected to!"

Oh, she was livid. She couldn't believe that I would have the nerve to say such a thing, nor was
she interested in hearing about why these kids were asked to leave. But I was not going to sit there
and argue with her, and having more important things to do with my time, I hung up on her.

About twenty minutes later, the judge and his wife showed up. They wanted to speak to me. By that
time things in the restaurant had settled down, and the only people in our dining room were a group
of four adults who had stopped by for a late night snack. I could see that the judge and his wife
were not happy, but I really didn't care.

Just like the woman on the phone, neither one of them were interested in hearing about the "why" of
the situation, and waving his hand toward the dining room, the judge sarcastically pointed out that
it didn't look like we were having any problems now. Then he proceeded to tell me that we could not
do this, that this was discrimination, and this is public property, and if we were having problems
then the owner of the store should just close down altogether. Yeah, right. That would be real good
for this city, wouldn't it? We weren't the only business in this area having the problems we were
having, and I guess this is how the judge feels that we should all handle it. Okay, sure. Let's
see how well this community does without the revenues these businesses bring into this city.

Any business privately owned is considered private property regardless of whether or not it caters
to the public. Our restaurant was a privately owned business by one single individual, and even
though we provide a service to the public, it doesn't mean that it automatically becomes public
property. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't understand this and seem to think that they can come
into our establishment and do whatever they hell they want to. And I was actually very surprised
that a municipal court judge didn't seem to understand this either, which goes to show you that
stupidity isn't just limited to common, everyday, average folk.

If a neighbor parked his car in your driveway directly behind your car, preventing you from being
able to get your car out, you have the right to have his car towed. It doesn't matter how upset
your neighbor gets. By the same token, if I have people exhibiting destructive, disruptive, and
loud behavior in this restaurant, then as a representative of my employer, I have the right to ask
them to leave. If they refuse, I can have them arrested for trespassing and disturbing the peace.
IT'S PRIVATE PROPERTY, FOLKS! My employer has the right to expect the same amount of respect for
his property that you would expect from a visitor in your own home regardless of who he is!