In downtown Chicago at the local restaurant Little Village, the wait staff recently accidentally served spiked alcohol punch to a group of children celebrating a birthday party at the restaurant. The party was taking place at Little Village on Tuesday at 9:30 PM, at Kildare and 31st.
As CBS 2’s Susanna Song reports, the police themselves released information that the sever admitted to making a mistake with the order that had been placed, including alcohol in the order which was unintended.
According to official reports, more than 10 children were taken to the hospital on Tuesday night as a simple precaution to ensure the children were healthy and without any harmful effects due to the alcohol intake. However, upon the children arriving to the hospital and receiving tests, there was no alcohol determined within any of the children’s systems.
Although police do believe that at least one child drank and ingested the punch before the punch was taken away and removed by the wait staff, there is no conclusive evidence that alcohol was consumed by minors or by the children who were present for the party.
How Did This Happen?
Additionally, the police officers and report claim that although it is only clear that one child drank the punch themselves, it is possible the that punch was also shared and consumed by up to ten other children throughout the course of the beginning of the party.
Once the punch was served to all of the family, friends and children in the restaurant, the event continued on without disruption or issue. However, when the wait staff returned after a short while to collect all of the cups and the punch itself, the parents and surrounding adults became worried and questioned the situation directly.
One of the parents who was attending the party at Little Village said that some of the children were crying, contributing to the hysterical scene as it was interrupted by the wait staff and by providing the incorrect beverage.
Where Were the Parents?
At first, parents and those who were supervision the party did not notice anything odd or out of place at the restaurant, until the servers returned to remove the punch and all of the drinking cups from the tables and the children themselves. Once the parents began to take notice of the actions of the wait staff, they then smelled the drinks themselves and determined there was in fact, alcohol present within the punch.
Although it has been confirmed that there was no conclusive evidence of alcohol within the systems of the children who attended Little Village on Tuesday, the parents and adults who were present at the time state they are most outraged by the inability to inform the adults of the situation from the restaurant owner or managers themselves.
Adults who were involved in this situation believe that if they had not identified the alcohol within the punch themselves, they may have never been informed of the error from the wait staff of the incident altogether. Daniel Costello, Home Run INN president, stated “We are currently working with staff to conduct an internal investigation to discern the facts of what occurred.”