• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

63-year-old man denied entry into Legoland because he didn't have a child with him

Status
Not open for further replies.
E

Espresso

Banned
"to protect the families and children"...

Canadian Lego fanatic John St-Onge had travelled from Windsor, Ontario, to Toronto especially to visit the attraction and says he felt he was discriminated against by its unfair company policy.

The 63-year-old has more than 50,000 pieces which he has collected for three decades after buying the sets for his own children.

He has always dreamt of visiting Legoland in Denmark, but never had the chance due to ill health.

So when he found out there was a Legoland Discovery Centre at an Ontario tourism centre he decided to pay it a visit with his adult daughter Nicole.

But he hadn't realised it was company policy to visit the site with a child in tow.
Click to expand...

009217-0e53fe22-e8f6-11e2-b459-490c5143e0a3.jpg

Mr St-Onge told CTV News he also hadn't realised the condition is listed on the Legoland website, and was left disappointed and embarrassed that he wasn't able to go inside.

Daughter Nicole said despite speaking with the manager the pair were not allowed in and that it was a silly rule as "Lego is for people of all ages".

"I was crushed. My dad is 63 years old, he was devastated. The look on his face was like a child not getting the gift at Christmas that they want.

"He felt discriminated against because he's a senior citizen who also happens to like Lego."

However, the company defended the policy and said being a child attraction the policy is in place "to protect the families and children that visit".
Click to expand...

Source: news.com.au
 
Build a lego bridge and get over it.

It's universal policy for any person wanting to visit Legoland. Hardly discriminatory. Legoland isn't for adults without children.
 
Good thing my sister just gave birth to a baby daughter last April :)
Can't wait to spoil the shit out of her when she grow up.
 
Miserable shits. Clearly LEGO isn't meant to be enjoyed by anyone with pubes.

That said, the hardcore adult LEGO community does creep me out a bit. It's the 'TFOL' and 'AFOL' acronyms that do it.
 
They do this a Chuckie Cheese and have been for many years. Sounds like a legit rule to me. Sucks though this guy didn't get to go but hopefully things get worked out.
 
The fact that he was with another adult and that person was a woman drastically reduces the already small odds that he was a predator.

I get why they'd institute this policy. It's easier than letting lone adults in and then watching them carefully. Still seems overprotective and, in this case, very unfortunate.

It's too bad he didn't carry a bunch of wallet photos of his lego collection around. Maybe that would have helped. But since his own kin vouching for him didn't work, maybe pictures wouldn't help either.
 
Ive got two young daughters and this is just horseshit

I really do wonder if they would have done the same if it were a 63 year old woman, regardless of what the rules say
 
espresso said:
Do I even want to know?
Click to expand...

Teenage fan of LEGO, Adult fan of LEGO. Always seemed pointless and a little bit odd to me, but now it seems like being concious of ones 'age' is par for the course for LEGO.

aku:jiki said:
Teen and Adult Fan of Lego. No idea why he thinks that's creepy.
Click to expand...
I don't really know either, it just never sat right with me. Seemed like a false way of projecting 'authority' or something.
 
Fred-87 said:
you sound like a boring person. not allowed to have fun? what
Click to expand...
You sound like someone with poor reading comprehension. Nice strawman, but I never said people aren't allowed to have fun.

This man is claiming discrimination for not being allowed in, yet it's policy for anyone over 18 wanting to visit Legoland. He is angry for not knowing policy before booking his trip. Only one person at fault there. There are also adults only nights apparently!

No excuse really. I love Lego and want to visit someday, but I understand the reason for the policy and am not extremely upset that I'm not allowed inside a children's theme park by myself.
 
What a weird policy.

liquidtmd said:
I really do wonder if they would have done the same if it were a 63 year old woman, regardless of what the rules say
Click to expand...
Indeed. I wonder if they keep the mentally disabled adults out too, as in those that got stuck in their development for whatever reason.
 
SmokyDave said:
Teenage fan of LEGO, Adult fan of LEGO. Always seemed pointless and a little bit odd to me, but now it seems like being concious of ones 'age' is par for the course for LEGO.
Click to expand...

I get why this could come off as slightly creepy, but I'd guess those categorizations emerged precisely because of the preconception that legos are for kids only. They had to give themselves a label so they could easily find each other and associate. Of all the "toys" that teens and adults might continue to be interested in, legos are among the least weird, IMO.
 
Honestly, I've never heard of a rule like that so if I were to go somewhere then I'd definitely not check if there's a ridiculous rule like that in place.

Why is a rule like this even in place, what are the benefits and who would request things like that?
 
Patryn said:
If he was so embarrassed, why did he go to the press about it?
Click to expand...

Because he thought it was a bullshit policy? Same reason the guy who had to be moved on some airplane because he sat next to a kid went to the press, after having been embarrassed in front of all the passengers.
 
Jackben said:
You sound like someone with poor reading comprehension. Nice strawman, but I never said people aren't allowed to have fun.

This man is claiming discrimination for not being allowed in, yet it's policy for anyone over 18 wanting to visit Legoland. He is angry for not knowing policy before booking his trip. Only one person at fault there. There are also adults only nights apparently!

No excuse really. I love Lego and want to visit someday, but I understand the reason for the policy and am not extremely upset that I'm not allowed inside a children's theme park by myself.
Click to expand...

It's policy not to allow black people in my restaurants, not discrimination. There are other restaurants.
 
Jackben said:
Legoland isn't for adults without children.
Click to expand...

Why not? It's a restriction obviously based on fear of the "old guy going into kids section" stereotype.

FillerB said:
So why not go to the special "Adult Only" nights?
http://www.legolanddiscoverycentre.ca/toronto/news-events/event/652/next-adults-only-night.aspx

http://www.legolanddiscoverycentre.ca/toronto/news-events/events-legoland-discovery-centre.aspx
Click to expand...

He shouldn't have to wait for a special time for he to be allowed into the park.
 
snap0212 said:
Honestly, I've never heard of a rule like that so if I were to go somewhere then I'd definitely not check if there's a ridiculous rule like that in place.

Why is a rule like this even in place, what are the benefits and who would request things like that?
Click to expand...

There's a fear that any place with tons of kids will attract pedophiles or otherwise unsavory characters. A lone man showing up to a place like that is a red flag, even though it's a very low probability that he is in fact a threat. The easiest way to address this fear is to be extremely strict. Most adults won't complain about it because they aren't interested in going to a place for kids all by themselves. Then there's occasionally an adult who does want to, and they can't.

So the benefit is minimization (to nearly zero) of the threat of predators (or at least the perception of that threat, since people with families can be predators as well) and the cost is like 1 dude who feels discriminated against every once in a while. Seems obvious why they do it, even if we can debate whether they're being overly protective or fearful of extreme low probability threats.
 
FillerB said:
So why not go to the special "Adult Only" nights?
http://www.legolanddiscoverycentre.ca/toronto/news-events/event/652/next-adults-only-night.aspx

http://www.legolanddiscoverycentre.ca/toronto/news-events/events-legoland-discovery-centre.aspx
Click to expand...

Yeah. I mean, obviously it sucks that the guy is in poor health and was turned away, but he lives just a few hours from the place and can go like, tonight.

The article linked seems to be purposefully leaving out a few bits.
 
Jackben said:
No excuse really. I love Lego and want to visit someday, but I understand the reason for the policy and am not extremely upset that I'm not allowed inside a children's theme park by myself.
Click to expand...

Discrimination based on age or gender is completely unacceptable, and no other major theme park does it. Not Disney. Not Universal. Not SeaWorld. Not Busch Gardens. Not Six Flags. And nothing about the nature of Lego makes it any different from the likes of Disney, both of which enjoy a fan base ranging from the very old to the very young. This is pedo paranoia taken to the absurd. What if this man were infertile, and never had children? Or just chose not to? And the so called Adults Only night is the equivalent of separate but equal segregation bullshit.
 
SmokyDave said:
I don't really know either, it just never sat right with me. Seemed like a false way of projecting 'authority' or something.
Click to expand...
I don't know anything about the Lego scene but I'd assume that it's because non-weirdo adults want to avoid the headaches and potentail awkwardness of being 45 and chatting up 12-year-olds, so they identify "AFOL" sites and just speak freely with people their own age group, etc?

uuaschbaer said:
It's policy not to allow black people in my restaurants, not discrimination. There are other restaurants.
Click to expand...
Glad I'm not the only one who saw the incredibly broken logic going on in that post. Someone values "company policy" a little too highly.
 
hey_it's_that_dog said:
There's a fear that any place with tons of kids will attract pedophiles or otherwise unsavory characters. A lone man showing up to a place like that is a red flag, even though it's a very low probability that he is in fact a threat. The easiest way to address this fear is to be extremely strict. Most adults won't complain about it because they aren't interested in going to a place for kids all by themselves. Then there's occasionally an adult who does want to, and they can't.

So the benefit is minimization (to nearly zero) of the threat of predators (or at least the perception of that threat, since people with families can be predators as well) and the cost is like 1 dude who feels discriminated against every once in a while. Seems obvious why they do it, even if we can debate whether they're being overly protective or fearful of extreme low probability threats.
Click to expand...

lol at the bolded.

Family is where most predators find their prey.
 
WillyFive said:
Why not? It's a restriction obviously based on fear of the "old guy going into kids section" stereotype. He shouldn't have to wait for a special time for he to be allowed into the park.
Click to expand...
It's unknown what it is based on because the operators of Legoland have not explicitly said. What I can tell you is that it's not discriminatory of senior citizens. Anyone over 18 is subject to the same restriction.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

19 year old male mauled to death by lioness after climbing into zoo enclosure
2
81
964
TheChumpNation replied
  • Poll
Blu-ray turns 20 years old - Feeling old yet?
News  2
68
736
jason10mm replied
year in review (with Pornhub)
37
609
Sub_Level replied
Strap-On Folks - GQ’s Man of the Year is…
NSFW  2
53
672
Biff replied
Man eats 58 year old bag of Lays Potato Chips
33
3K
Codes 208 replied
Top Bottom