The days of shopping with a 40-pound human ball and chain may be over. Since three Kids Only theaters first opened in Illinois and Arizona two months ago, some 5,000 children have been mesmerized by videos of vintage Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. American Cartoon Theaters of Rolling Meadows, Ill., plans to launch as many as 40 more mall-based movie houses nationwide this year. The potential market is huge: about half of the 172 million adult Americans who visit a shopping center at least once a month say they tend to go with their families, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.
These families inspired entrepreneur Daniel Slater, who dreamed up the kids-only theaters - complete with low-to-the-ground toilets. For $3 an hour, children 3 to 12 years old can settle into their pint-size chairs. Theater staff members beep the parents when children grow sick or uncontrollable-or are left for longer than two hours. The theaters will hand over children only to the adults who brought them. Parents must show ID when they drop their child off, when they pick him up, their beeper number must match the one stamped on their child’s hand.
Safe idea? Despite the beepers, bar-coded ID cards and video monitors at the front of the theater, not everyone thinks Kids Only is a good, safe idea. “You’d be surprised how much can happen in two hours,” says childcare consultant Patti Hathcoat. Company officials carefully say they’re providing “supervised entertainment,” not child care. But regulators in California want the theaters licensed as day-care centers. “We have to be concerned about the quality,” says Barbara Reisman, executive director of the New York-based Child Care Action Campaign. The theaters show classic cartoons; they’ve banned ads, violent previews and Bart Simpson. Still, says Reisman, “you’re basically talking about a different form of watching television as a baby-sitting arrangement.” She also wonders whether two staff members can adequately supervise up to 95 boisterous children.
Despite those concerns, drop-off child services may be the wave of the future - kids love them, and parents who can’t find babysitters are relieved not to have to drag reluctant shoppers around with them. Most of them can all too easily identify with the two Chicago moms who recently dropped off their children at a Kids Only theater, rounded the corner by nearby Taco Bell and yelled, “Yippee, we’re free!”
Photo: Sign here for Bugs Bunny: No more shopping with a 40-pound human ball and chain
