Sweet Sixteen Party Turns Sour

The article below is about a 'riot' or 'disturbance' that happened last night at a Club in Cincinnati. The whole situation doesn't surprise me at all. Read the article first and then bounce back to the top to see my thoughts. I think what is interesting was seeing how the adults talked about the whole situation in the article. Here are my thoughts:

• Why in the world is a 16 year old girl's parents renting out Metropolis for their daughter's b-day party? (Metropolis' Website) I mean take one look at the website and tell me that is the kind of place where you want your baby girl to celebrate her coming of age. This is just one example of a bigger problem. It's not normal to rent a club for your daughter that just happens to also have Chippendale Performers there at a different time in the year.
  
• The thing I am least surprised by is the crowd showing up. You can't keep anything a secret with current technology. Even if students weren't inviting their friends by text, you can bet a lot of them were updating their Twitter's and Facebook statuses letting people know that they were at Metropolis (which any other night would be an 18 and up club).
• Another thing that didn't surprise me is that parents just dropped their students off at Metropolis and just left. It might surprise you to hear that a parent would take their teenage son or daughter to a club and leave them at the door, but from my time in student ministry, parents dropping students off like this is more normal than I'd like to admit.
• Finally, 2 things that I think are really telling. First off, the line in the story saying that the teens were worse to deal with than the adults. I laughed out loud when I read it. In America Teen's are the big spenders and make most of the big spending decisions in their families today. Why does it surprise us to find out their are difficult to deal with in these situations? Why in the world would they feel so entitled (a little sarcasm in that last line).
  
• The last thing that was so telling was that the owner of Metropolis REFUNDED the parents money for the evening. In his opinion the family was the victim that night and their night was ruined. I really don't think the club should have ever rented out their facility for an underage event no matter how big the check was. Still, how did the parents ever think this was a good idea?

Read the article below and realize that this is just one example of what is happening on a much larger scale all across the US. We are enabling our students to 'play' grown-up way to early in their development, and feeding a huge sense of entitlement as well. Pretty interesting stuff.

Article from cincinnati.com

FAIRFIELD – A Sweet 16 party at Metropolis night club turned sour Tuesday evening when an estimated 1,500-2,000 teenagers showed up for the private party meant for just 80-100 people.

Those invited to the party began telling their friends through text messages and Facebook posts that the club was holding a free teen night, said Fairfield police Sgt. Don Garrett.

“It got out of control fast,” Garrett said. “I don’t think they expected the electronic deluge.”

Club security turned the teens without invitations away. Many, stranded without rides, hung out in the parking lot. Others became belligerent, police said.

Crowds of teenagers were mulling around the parking lot about 8:15 p.m. when gunshots were heard somewhere in the crowd.

The few police officers scheduled to patrol the party called for backup. At some point pepper balls were shot at the ground to corral the crowd, which began rushing into the mall, across busy Winton Road, even running over the highway overpass to the shopping centers across busy Interstate 275.

In the mayhem, one teen fell over the side of the parking garage to the lower level, but was not seriously hurt, Garrett said.

After rushing from Cincinnati Mills, large groups of teens began hanging out in parking lots at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Chipotle, Old Spaghetti Factory, BW3 and gas stations. BP turned out its lights to deter the teens from hanging out around the station.

Hundreds of people walked the area on both sides of Winton Road, which runs past the mall.

Police from countless agencies continued looking for a possible shooter and afraid that fights could begin rushed to and from large crowds.

Several officers carried pepper ball guns and police canines sniffed out the area.

The last large group was dispersed just before 10 p.m. at the Kroger store on the corner of Winton and West Kemper roads.

Club owner Mike Strait was shocked by the evening and said he had already reimbursed the family that had rented this club for their daughter’s party.

“It’s harder to deal with them (teens) than adults,” said Strait, who has owned Metropolis since May 2005. “When they were told it was a private party, they were not happy.”

There were no injuries and it appears there were no arrests.