At seven PM before the day is nearly over, all of the activities at the Red Rock are completely shut down to minors. Recently, the policy requiring all children under 18 to have an adult with them after 9 pm has changed to 7 in the evening. This prohibits kids from going to see movies later at night, participating in cosmic bowling, and sometimes forcing kids to stand in the dark, cold weather for their parents to pick them up.

Dolittle, a PG movie with the intended audience of children has 40 percent of their showings after 7 pm. If a group of children plan on attending this movie because of the curfew being pushed forward they can only choose from 2 movie times, but if the curfew had remained the same the kids could choose from 80 percent of the movie showtimes. How has this affected Faith Students? A Faith Lutheran student, Emily Stauss was recently asked to leave the Red Rock because of curfew. She told us “I was at the movie theaters with my friends and it was getting late and so we were thinking about going to the arcade, but they were like “no you need to get out of here” and I was like “Why can’t we hang out in here,” and they just said “No, it’s too late”, so I said “Alright”, and I left.”

After the unreasonable scheduling, the kids could decide to go bowling the next time instead. At the Red Rock bowling alley a popular activity is cosmic bowling, with blacklights, music, and glow in the dark lanes. This night-time activity starts at 6 pm, and the average bowling game for 6 people, the Red Rock game maximum, takes 70 minutes. So the cosmic bowling starts at 6, and then the children are required to leave at 7 when their game may not be completely over. These children are escorted out of the alley, unaware of the new rules. A similar situation happened to Jack Biggs when, “One time my friends and I were trying to go bowling but the wait was long so we went to the food court and the security guard told us we had to go. We tried to wait in the little area by the elevators for our parents to come but the lady forced us to wait outside for them and it was really cold out.”
What was the large issue with children being able to enjoy their nights that the Red Rock had to make the curfew earlier, and ruin it for kids? According to Officer Paul, the time was changed from 9 to 7 because they did not want minors out without an adult at late hours.”

As they’re being forced into the parking garage they call their parents but their parents may not be able to get there for over 20 minutes. So Red Rock expects minors to be sitting in the dark, cold parking garage until their parents arrive. This inflicts the safety aspect of now there are 8 year olds sitting alone in a parking garage. If a kidnapper, or a child predator learns about this new rule before it’s common information to parents, they can take advantage of young children that have been ushered into the parking garage without supervision. So what did Red Rock accomplish by making the curfew two hours earlier? They have ruined the aspect of a late night movie, cosmic bowling, and jeopardized a child’s safety all so their security guards could have one less thing to worry about, children.