Tiffany Thiem
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jul 08/98) - Who can really say if teens are really being discriminated against?

Ella Newhook, manager of San Francisco Gifts, says that when they watch teens who walk through the store, it is usually the ones who have caused trouble before.

"Most of the kids aren't that bad, there's just the few rambunctious ones," Newhook explained.

But another problem that can cause some cautious behavior by shopowners is the amount of kids that come into the store.

"Herds of 12 to 15 kids are hard to handle when you're just one person."

Newhook feels that "There's good and bad in every lot, just more good than bad."

Christopher Goit, the Yellowknife Inn's food and beverage manager, (also manager of L'atitudes) has an entirely different problem concerning what he calls the "hanger-outers."

"See we sell seats, service and product, and if someone sits there for three hours and spends a lot of money on product, we're fine with that. But a group of seven who ordered one coffee and four water, who sit there waste time and money, there's has to be restrictions on seating time," explains Goit.

Goit also points out that there are trouble-makers as well who cost more money than they make. "I'm spending $1000 on upholstery, and they carve into my tables."

And if someone else is doing those things and isn't thrown out, Goit says to that:

"Sorry, we are not the police, sometimes we don't see everything because we might be too busy doing our job, we serve more than we watch."

"None of them realizes that this is their real job (the servers) and they live off of tips, and the coffee-drinkers only spend money on the coffee, so if the server isn't getting paid they don't have to let them 'hang-out,' how do they expect respect when they are not giving any," said Goit.

Goit doesn't think that all the teens are coffee-drinkers, "there's also some adult-like types who just hang around, too."