Dealing with Minors

Should be "reinforce my decision to do business there."

I hate seing that particular mistake in others' posts ... you'd think I'd be more careful in my own!

The poll results really make me wonder if there isn't a twelve year old cruising fauna too... From a business standpoint, the only logical answer was to avoid dealing with minors who don't have parental approval but there's one dissenting voice (vote)...

It could go either way depending on the kid. If a kid was experinced with snakes and lived near some, i would probabally send it to them. Considering if it were me, If i couldnt get the snake, i would probabally catch the snake which is almost 10x more dangerous than buying it from a stranger *The percent is depending where you live* Now, if the kid thought that (And i Quote!) "Snakes cant sense heat and have excellent eyesight* I would never ever sell a snake to him. I took that from a friend that said his dad bought his brother a Redtail boa. Now being the good person i am, and knowing if he did not study up on snakes, the snake would die a premature death. I offered to buy the snake, but he said no and he knows what he is talking about.

... Huh?!

children even if the parents approve has always been a hands off experience for me after I saw what happened in the 70s with the ban on turtles because of Salmonella. The liabilities are just to great for any potential health hazard. Not that problems cant arise in adults, but children sometimes do stupid things, and its usually done with animals. In the case of the turtles, it had to do with putting them in their mouth. I would discourage selling anythng to minors even with the parents consent. If you indicate that you were against the sale, and the parent still went through with it, then thats a different story. Juries tend to side with the poor parent who has incurred all these medical bills and was an ussuspecting buyer who did not realize the pitfalls of buying a reptile that could cause a health problem. That argument is sympathetically plausable. But not if the seller advised againt the sale.

I agree. We do not sell to children without their parents permission and actually in almost all cases we actually make the sale to the parents. That way they can not say that we sold the animal to their kid without them knowing or anything like that.

One thing we have found is today there seem to be too many idiots out there as Adults. I can't tell you how many times we have had customers physically checking out a snake and kiss it or rub it on their face or other stupid things as that. The kids seem to be more responsible and clean their hands before and after handling the animal with our hand cleaner that we have on our tables for such a reason. Most adults don't even care to use hand cleaner when we offer it to them. A number of years back at a show we had a adult man customer (probably in his 40's at the time) who was holding one of our sub-adult Ball Pythons stick the animals head in his mouth. I was distracted by another customer for an instant and that is when he did this. I immediately took the snake back from him and started to give him a piece of mind on how stupid that was and rude that he would do something of the sorts to someone else's animal much less his own. He then proceeded to tell me that is how he can tell if the animal is truly tame. He said when he can stick the head of the animal in his mouth and it does not bite him it is tame. He is about the most idiotic customer we have had to date (but there have been many of them in different situations).

I don't own a pet shop and likely never will own one. I don't sell big time, but do sell at some local shows about 5 to 6 times per year, and I've sold somethings over the internet. I have visited lots of pet shops and lots of herp shows. Now based on my experience, I have got to say shame on some of you so called professional and knowledgeable adults! Some of the things I have read in this thread are down and out likely to contribute to cause kids to have absolutely crappy younger years. No, I am not talking about the fact that most, if not all of you, agree that you will not sell live animals like snakes to minors. That is an intelligent thing; yet I know of some situations where you could and probably should sell animals to minors. I have no problem only selling herps to adults, I do this myself. When it comes to feeders, well that could be another story. But I digress from the point I want to make...

What I do have a problem with is the holier than thou, and I am now a grown-up with a grown-up point of view, attitudes of those who have seemingly forgotten your own youths. Some of you would not allow children into a pet store without an adult - or at least seem to tjhink that a good idea! Are you kidding! If children came into your store, and were behaving well - are you telling me you would kick them out? If a child is old enough to be out and about on his own or with similarly aged friends, and they enter your place of business and act nicely, what is the problem? I would think you are more likely to have adult customers who are jerks, dunder heads, nasty, and thieving than you would be to have children who act like that.
Some seem to suggest that selling something to a child is entering into a contract with him/her. That may be true over the internet, but even in the state that was mentioned where it is illegal to enter into contracts with kids - does that mean a kid cannot go into a store and buy something - for instance like a goldfish to feed his/her Garter Snake; and by the same exact logic and legal resoning - does that mean the same kid can not walk into the candy shop next to the herp store and buy himself a soda pop and a Mounds Bar? Would buying that candy be entering into a contract - would buying a feeder goldfish? (This is a real, not a rhetorical question.)

Some of you also seemed shocked to think that a 12 year old child may have been allowed to enter a herp show without parents. (I hope you were kidding and that I missed it.) Is a herp show rated rated PG-13 or greater for nasty content? Since when are unescorted children, of the age in question, not allowed into herp shows. They are allowed into movie theaters, candy stores, libraries, parks, supermarkets, malls and so on. Do you trust your own children so little as not to give them that much freedom? Heck my kids and their friends go to: the ball park, the school yard, the movies, candy stores (oh golly gosh gee wilikers), comic book stores, the bike store, and the mall (can you believe that - to the mall) and out running, bike riding and skating for exercise (and even to the library sometimes). They even walk to the bus stop for the school bus all alone! They have done it for a more than a few years now.

Can you imagine that one of them might go to a local herp show or to a pet shop to see the animals! Worse still, can you imagine someone banning children from attending the things I mentioned above without a parent - and that includes herp shows. Holy cow that would be terrible wouldn't it. You guys really make this sound like some sort of a crime - but I'll bet $5 to a box of stale doughnuts that all of you went to pet shops when you were kids, and that at one time or another as a kid (if there was one within walking distance or bike riding distance and the owner was not a total nasty old fart) you went there alone or with a friend of about the same age as yourself (unescorted by adults). Please tell me what is the problem with that?

Try not to forget that the pet shop was and still is one of the most fun and exotic places of childhood.
All the best,
Glenn B

Interesting points Glenn but...

Things have changed to a certain degree.

When I was a kid, I wandered all over the place alone (Suburbia was safe) into and out of local shops, including the pet stores.

Thing is though, if I had started banging on tanks, I could have been physically hauled out and dumped on the curb. My parents response would have been "You deserved it."

If I had gotten into a cage and been bitten, once again the response would have been "You deserved it."

These days though things have changed. Kids are frequently robbed of the ability to learn through experience, their parents take the responsibility for their actions and put them on everyone but the people who it really belongs to (The kids and their parents). In this sue happy world, I don't think it's safe to allow kids to wander unsupervised- too many parents would decide that somehow the responsibility for the kid's actions became the burden of every nearby adult except themselves.

Seamus,

I understand the whole thing about the sue crazy society in which we live. That is not going to stop kids from being out and about, nor will it stop them from entering a pet shop - unless the owner kicks them out or prevents their entry. Just those actions by the owner may initiate a law suit - so it is a no win situation when it comes to law suit wieners.

I guess Shakespeare had something there when he wrote (albeit for different reasons), that the first thing to do is kill all the lawyers (no I am not suggesting that we really do this although I have fantasized - LOL). Of course this does not just apply simply because children can be mischievous and get into tanks and get bitten by a herp, because it is much more likely, in my opinion, for a knucklehead adult to try to get into the tank. I have observed lots of this at herp shows over and over again. The children (who are old enough to be unaccompanied - about 12 on up, and even those younger down to around 5 or 6) ask permission of the dealer in approximately 98 plus percent of the time (whether or not the child is accompanied by a parent or other adult). Note I do not use younger kids as an example because I doubt very much you are going to get an unaccompanied child under the age of about 10, but as I recall, even most of the kids old enough to talk in sentences ask permission. Yet, the adults only ask permission to pick something up or open an herp container about 75 to 85 percent of the time (I should keep notes, but these figures are good guesstimates). The adults also seem much more likely to poke at containers, and to pick them up and shake them about. Of course if a container is already open - well that is another story for both kids and adults - such as a sweater box full of young bearded dragons with no lid - yet the great majority of both ask permission even though the dealer has virtually invited people to touch with the open container in a sea of other closed containers. The same thing happens at gun shows, but to an even greater degree regarding children. I have never, I repeat never, seen a child pick up a gun off of a dealer's table without asking permission of the dealer and or his accompanying parent - and I have been to quite a few gun shows.

Children seem to have much more of a knowledge of what they are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Adults, some of them anyhow, seem to think that because they are an adult the rules of what not to do no longer apply to them. Sure you get kids in whom the rules never take hold, but just observe at your next herp show as best as you can without any prejudice and see who puts hands on more often without asking, and who puts hands on more often in a downright ridiculous fashion. I think some of the things that keep kids from grabbing herps are:

1) Fear of the unknown and of being bitten when a child knows little about herps.

2) Fear of being yelled at or punished by an adult for doing something he/she should not have done.

3) Responsibility in knowing that yes I need to ask first that comes from learning at home and in school, and in real life situations.

4) Deference to an adult.

5) Closed containers at herp shows, and in a herp store: locked containers (this should be a must if not because of law suit crazy jerks who would otherwise open the enclosures, then because of thieves). Then again, why not locked containers at a herp show too - but I know - I am on the cheap side myself.

6) Enough workers at your table or in your store to keep an eye on things. (Sure I know there are never enough but you get the picture, don't you. I have already seen a dealer with four tables at a herp show, with only one person behind all four tables - boy if only I had been a thief!)

7) Signs posted saying please do not touch without permission.

We can all refuse to allow children to look at or touch our animals, if the children are unaccompanied but, that will likely lead to really crappy results down the road a bit. Those kids who get the bad taste for herp shows and herp or pet stores in their mouths will very likely be the same ones who don't come back later to buy. If you don't believe that just look at hunting today. It is a good analogy. For years the liberal left has been telling children that modern sport hunting is bad, that it causes extinction of species (yet it never has caused even one specie to go extinct), that hunters are bad, that they all drink booze when they hunt, that they litter all over the environment, that they shoot anything that moves, they shoot as many animals as they can, that all or most of them violate game laws frequently, that guns are evil, that guns are dangerous (in and of themselves without help from people), that animals are our friends, that animals have human like qualities, that we can communicate with the animals, that there is no need for hunting. If you don't think all of this is true, then please watch the cartoon Bambi that was produced by Disney. I believe, my opinion, that those attitudes are fully expressed in that feature length cartoon quite well. These are, in my opinion, the attitudes that have destroyed hunting; but only because adults allow children to actually believe stuff like this, and to nurture feelings like that in them. Sure there are some bum hunters, just as there are bum drinkers, bum drivers, and bums who stick a snake's head into their mouths. Jerks come in all shapes and sizes and in all walks of life, but that is not a valid reason to destroy one of those walks of life, for the good people who take that path and whom are in the great majority of people on that trail. You see they stay on the trail, they don't screw it up, it is just a handful that messes things up for the much larger majority.

Yet, hunting has been made to look unappealing to children, and as a result the average of hunters in the USA has skyrocketed to in the 40s. This is because the majority of hunters have been made to look like bums by the antis, when in fact the great majority of hunters are law abiding, sober, level headed, average citizens who enjoy hunting. Pause for a moment and think about the average age of hunters today. Can you believe that the average age is in the 40s - this comes from license sales data. In the 40s and if I remember right it was the mid to late 40s at that! Just a few years ago it was in the low to mid 30s. Fewer and fewer young hunters take to the field each year thereby reducing license sales (the number one major source of revenue for wildlife conservation), reducing receipt of taxes on hunting items (another major source of revenue for wildlife conservation) and, reducing sales of anything else bought buy hunters such as: meals, gasoline, maps, clothing, hotel stays, camping fees, hunting area fees, lodge fees, hunting videos, and so on. This will be a major hit to wildlife conservation and to anyone who makes any money from hunters. It will be especially true in the near future when the potential young hunters grow into adults and do not bring their children into hunting.

The fanatics have won in the hunting arena - well almost - I have taken my son hunting and taught him riflery, and I have taught my daughter riflery and she got her hunter safety certificate. Maybe someday they will do the same with their kids. I sort of do the same with them regarding herps too, so maybe there is still hope there. I hope the fanatics don't win in the herp show/pet store arena, I hope the average age of the herp keeper does not soon or ever rise to in the 40s!

All the best,
Glenn B

in one word LIABILITY. No one doubts their are children that are more grownup then some grownups that I know. But until something happens, then the parents take over.

This is not a behavior problem about kids running rampant in a pet shop. Because we both know that for every wild kid, theirs a calm one. But in either case when a health problem arises, then other factors enter the picture.

Now I was their during the Turtle wars in the 1970s that pertained to Salmonella. I even knew the store that sold the turtle to the parent who gave it to the child, who either handled the turtle and never washed his hands or either put the turtle in his mouth. I am unsure which occurred. But the child came down with Salmonella. The store was sued, the turtle wholesaler was sued, the breeder was sued.This also involved 3 different state officials, not to mention insurance companies. and then the federal health dept got involved. We all know the outcome of what happened then. Turtles whose carapace were under 4 inches were no longer legal. Then we had the enforcement division enter the picture.

I dont know what the outcome was from a $ 0.25 cent turtle, but I am glad I was not involved! So maybe we have to learn how to deal with children and insure that the liabilities fall on the parents.

These things happen because parents do not have rules. Even under the best of circumstances, with children who do follow rules, their is no statue of limitation on a child getting sick from a reptile or amphibian.

Sometimes these things can get a bit messy as in the case of a parent buying an imported ball python. Some how the mites migrated to the childs bed and the parent went crazy . The parent sued the seller whose insurance co. sued the importer, etc. So it just less of a headache to make sure that if you want to sell any herps to anyone especially children, you better have some kind of liability insurance or be prepared to protect your assests.