Cut off the bar's black hand reaching out to minors

Recently, the Intermediate People's Court of Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province, rendered a judgment on the case of a tavern in the city and its actual operator, Li Moumou, in recruiting minors, ordering it to stop recruiting and accept minors into the pub, and at the same time apologizing to the public, which is also the first civil public interest litigation case of bar infringement on the rights of minors in the country.

According to media reports, the pub opened in October 2020, as of November 2021 was investigated, during which more than 60 minors have been recruited, and with the free provision of alcohol as a gimmick, the group recruited more than 30 underage students, to the pub as a member of the "atmosphere group", through dancing on the stage and other ways to promote the atmosphere of the pub. In addition, the pub also accepted a number of minors to consume, until the public interest lawsuit, the pub in more than a year of business time, due to the occurrence of drunken disturbances, fights and other incidents caused dozens of police situations, causing a bad impact on the growth of local minors.

The Mainland Law on the Protection of Minors clearly stipulates that operators of for-profit song and dance entertainment venues, bars, Internet access service business sites, and other places that are not suitable for minors' activities must not allow minors to enter, and must not recruit minors. This is the legal red line and moral bottom line set for the protection of minors against businesses, and any business for the purpose of making profits is not allowed to extend their black hands to minors.

As we all know, minors are not yet mentally mature, social cognition and self-control ability is not yet perfect, once stimulated by external influences, especially alcohol, it is very easy to make uncontrolled behavior, and even induce crime. Judging from the dozens of police incidents that occurred in the operating hours of the tavern involved in the case for more than a year, it not only caused adverse effects on the surrounding schools, destroyed the social environment for the healthy growth of minors, disrupted social order, but also caused the physical and mental health and legitimate rights and interests of unspecified minors to be infringed upon, which has the dual nature of harming personal interests and public interests.

Protecting minors is to protect our future, which is not only the responsibility of the government and the family, but also the responsibility of every enterprise, and no enterprise should do anything that violates the law, is against morality, and violates conscience. For those enterprises that make black money with a clear conscience, especially for the operators of entertainment service establishments that knowingly commit crimes in similar cases, the relevant functional departments should actively take action and strive to weave a protective network for minors, so that their black hands have nowhere to reach, and they will be caught. It is a good practice for the local procuratorate to file a public interest lawsuit against the tavern involved.

In this case, the court and procuratorate also served a family education guidance order on the parents of the minors concerned. The family is the first school for a child to grow up, and the parents are the first teachers of a child's education. On January 1 this year, the mainland Family Education Promotion Law came into effect, which means that family education has since risen from a traditional "family affair" to an important "state affair". This law clarifies the content and method of family education, and also gives parents more legal responsibilities. This also requires every family and every parent to be conscientious and conscientious and effectively protect the healthy growth of minors. (Yang Hang)