Family brawl erupts at children’s pizza place
Deborah Donovan | Daily Herald Staff
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CHICAGO:
Arlington Heights police are investigating a “family ordeal that got out of hand” Sunday night at the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant, 955 W. Dundee Road.

According to Sgt. Tom Boggs, a family was apparently celebrating the birthday of a young man in his early teens when other members of the family showed up, and an argument began.

“There was a pushing match and things were thrown,” said Boggs.

One person was taken to Northwest Community Hospital with a cut below an eye and another person went to a clinic for a cut on a hand.

“We tried to talk to everybody there last night,” Boggs said. “It’s hard to say at this point whether there will be charges.”

Boggs said he believes some of the participants had been drinking. He is not sure how many people were involved, but officers talked with five or six Sunday night.

While the altercation created a mess in the restaurant, no physical damage was done there, the sergeant said.

Boggs said the people involved were from the Northwest suburbs.

The restaurant has pizza, arcade games, shows and other things that appeal to young children.  A woman who answered the phone Monday afternoon declined to comment on the record.

Often I write about laws and regulations that are intended to help parents decide what is right for their child because sometimes these laws overstep boundaries.  There was a story a while ago about a woman who was arrested for leaving her sleeping toddler in the car while she walked with her other daughter to donate change to a Salvation Army bell-ringer less than 50 feet away.  I, like many others, couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps the police overstepped their boundaries in that case –  it was probably traumatic for all those kids to have to watch their mother getting taken away by the police in handcuffs.  I wish that parents nowadays could just be trusted to do what is best for their children – but then there are people like this woman from Alabama:

ALBERTVILLE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child after police say she let her daughter ride in a cardboard box on top of their van. Albertville Police spokesman Sgt. Jamie Smith said the 37-year-old woman was arrested Sunday after police received a call about a minivan on a state highway with a child riding on top.

The 13-year-old daughter wasn’t harmed and was turned over to a relative. A jail worker said the mother was out on bond Monday.

Thank goodness the child was not physically hurt.