Rotorua mum and Columbus Cafe at odds over noisy toddler

Melany Eason with her son Xavier. Photo / Stephen Parker

A Rotorua mum is outraged after a local hardware store cafe approached her about the noise her son was making and mentioned getting security involved.

But the cafe says the owner approached the mother because the child was screaming and other customers had complained.

Melany Eason said she was having a coffee at Columbus Coffee in Rotorua's Mitre 10 last Friday afternoon while 19-month son Xavier played on the playground nearby.

Xavier, she said, was ''squealing with joy'' at the time.

Eason said a cafe worker asked her to control her son because customers had complained.

Eason said she jokingly replied "if you've got any tips - that would be great" because it was just a young child playing. She said the woman responded that she was just trying to mediate the situation to prevent security being called.

But Eason said she was "gobsmacked" to hear that because she did not think a cafe next to a playground would complain about noise from children of paying customers playing.

"It made me feel so stink and so unwelcome."

Eason said in her opinion: "It's like Victorian times where they think children should be seen and not heard."

Melany Eason's son Xavier. Photo / Stephen Parker

She added she hardly ever took her child to restaurants and cafes but thought one with a playground would be more accepting about noise.

"I work with children every day, I know what they can be like and my boy was not being that bad.

"I am never going to that cafe again."

She complained to the Columbus Coffee franchise, who she said apologised and told her a manager would call her.

But Graeme Tait, managing director of Columbus parent company Cafe Brands, said a number of customers had complained to the cafe owner about a toddler screaming for some time at the gate of the Mitre 10 playground outside the cafe's entrance.

According to customers the toddler was screaming to get in and out of the playground, Tait said in a statement.

The mother and her friend, according to customers and the local owner, were not seated adjacent to the playground gate, so were not able to let the child in and out straight away, he said.

Columbus Cafe where the incident happened. Photo / Stephen Parker

The noise level was such that one customer who had been browsing in Mitre 10 near the cafe could clearly hear it and the store chef had also come out to check the situation because he was concerned, said Tait.

The cafe's local owner ''politely'' asked the mum if she was able to manage the screaming.

Tait said the mother was not asked to leave but told if the screaming continued security would most likely investigate the noise and she wanted to avoid that.

Customer complaints were taken seriously and Eason had been called on the day by a Cafe Brands support worker to offer an apology for any distress caused and to get her side of events.

Tait provided the name and contact details of two customers who he said witnessed the event.

One of them, Kathy Hawker, told the Rotorua Daily Post she was having her daily coffee at Columbus on Friday when a "piercing scream" caused many people to turn their heads toward the noise.

"The scream went on for a good five minutes and came from a child inside the playground," Hawker said.

Hawker was just about to deal with it herself when she saw the cafe owner walking over.

She said the cafe was quite full and described the noise as disturbing.