Enchanted Parks Off to a Great Start
It seems new ownership was not prepared with policies and security, as "opening day at Six Flags St. Louis ended early on Saturday with police on the scene. They were called after multiple brawls involving as many as 100 people, most of whom were juveniles, broke out at the park."
I know this can happen anywhere (including ICON Park in Orland last weekend), but this very website was just debating the merits of chaperone policies. I think these unruly teens have illustrated why the policies are necessary, even if we didn't have them when we were teens, and if SOME teens are mature enough to have a job. Unfortunately, things are different today, and far too often these takeover events turn violent and unruly. Six Flags, Enchanted, ICON, etc.. all have a legal and moral duty to keep their guests safe.
Replies (4)
I strongly believe these draconian chaperone policies are a classic "cut off your nose to spite your face" situation, as they strongly discourage families from visiting. Like all of you I grew up going to the parks with my family, SFGAm was my home park, and much of our days consisted of "You [11-16 year olds] go on Batman and i'll take the smaller one on East River Crawler," and "You [11-16 year olds] go on Viper and i'll take the smaller one on Trailblazer." Another thing that parents rely on is the "you go on the rides and meet me back here at 4pm" while the parents possibly with small kids go on Sky Trek Tower, the train, the Carousel, Looney Tunes National Park, etc.
Neither the young child nor the middle aged parent could go on the big coasters, so it makes perfect sense to let teenagers go on their own. Now that i'm middle aged I don't go on many of the coasters, if I take teens to the park what am I supposed to do if they want to go on an SLC or freespin? I'd much rather go do something else than waste all my time standing in line for something i'm not going to ride...it just makes me not want to go in the first place. Coasters are primarily made for teenagers and maybe people in their early to mid 20s, Six Flags parks have lots of big coasters...it just makes no sense.
Also school field trips the norm is to have one chaperone for every 10 kids. What happens with that now? Do schools not go to parks anymore? Our school does a school trip to a park every year (this year it was UO, last year it was Sea World). Are all of those eliminated at SF parks now?
It makes absolutely zero sense to me from a business perspective to ruin the experience for all of your good customers because of the behavior of a bad few.
It's unfortunate that we live in a world where these sorts of things are necessary, but it seems that social media encouraging (primarily) teens and young adults to do crazy things for clout isn't going away anytime soon. However, I am very glad Enchanted took swift action and has put a new chaperone policy in place effective this weekend. The policy specifies one chaperone per six guests 16 and under during all operating hours, and that the chaperone does not need to remain with the kids but must be inside the park and reachable by phone at all times, which I consider to be a very fair policy. How it will be enforced remains to be seen, but Enchanted seems committed to distancing their properties from the image they developed under Six Flags (especially the St. Louis park), so hopefully this will be the last such report we hear of something like this out of the park.
@AJ - I agree, that is a reasonable compromise for the "ills of today" to address many of the concerns raised by the_man. I don't like that we have to have these policies, in fact, in years past I would be arguing against them. However, in light of what is happening, these parks have a legal obligation to response to the actual events that occur.
@Russell - I get that Enchanted is trying to be the "anti-" Six Flags, but they still operate in (very close to) and urban center. They are now on notice, and security and the security policies need to be enacted that addresses these situations. I get it was the first weekend, but all the more reason that Enchanted should have been on guard for this type of occurrence.
It is an unfortunate byproduct of deeply discounting season passes, and allowing these parks in urban centers to become the de facto summer camp (or babysitter for teens) that they have become rife with security incidents.
I think it's difficult to form an opinion from a single event, but it certainly doesn't look good. It's very possible that Enchanted thought they could manage these potential issues without maintaining SF's chaperone policy or having beefed up security, and this is an example that these issues will persist whomever is operating a theme park.
Maybe it's hubris, ignorance, or just plain obliviousness (or maybe all of those), but I don't think it's fair to criticize Enchanted too much here, especially since they are trying to market themselves as a departure from SF, and are seemingly attempting to do some things to address some of the criticisms of Six Flags.