Chuck E. Cheese's has lots of pint-sized action: a dancing mouse, birthday parties and arcade games.
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But it also has some rather unfortunate adult action: fights, assaults, vandalism, an attempted abduction and thefts.
The local kid-themed restaurant has had its share of troubles since it opened off Fruitville Pike in May 1994. So have other restaurants in the national chain, according to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal.
Here, Manheim Township Police were called to the restaurant at least seven times last year for incidents including a fight between a man and his girlfriend; a man who said he had Hepatitis C and caused a disturbance; a possible attempted abduction of a 17-year-old girl, who fought off a man who tried to drag her into a car in the parking lot; and a woman who had her car window smashed and purse stolen.
The restaurant also has been the site of more than a half-dozen other similar incidents, including a 2005 melee that police had to use pepper spray to break up and that resulted in four arrests.
"The numbers speak for themselves," said Manheim Township Police Sgt. Tom Rudzinski, but noted they were no higher than problems reported at other restaurants and pubs in the township.
Across the country, brawls and fights have broken out at the chain in Kansas, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, where a police captain told the Wall Street Journal a Chuck E. Cheese's in Brookfield generates more calls than a biker bar down the street.
Closer to home, five women and a juvenile were arrested after a fight over the weekend at a Chuck E. Cheese's in Susquehanna Township, outside of Harrisburg, according to a story in the Patriot-News. A video of the fracas was
posted to YouTube on the Internet by Sunday.
The manager at the Manheim Township restaurant referred questions about the problems there to the chain's home office in Texas.
Chuck E. Cheese's spokesman there, Richard Hutson, told the Wall Street Journal such problems are not typical. But, he said, even just one problem is "just way too many."
Why are there so many problems at a restaurant that is supposed to be geared toward kids and fun?
"You wouldn't think you would have these kinds of problems in a family-oriented restaurant, however things happen there just as they happen anywhere else," Rudzinski said.
Law-enforcement officials in other areas told the Patriot-News and the Wall Street Journal that the problems are caused by the emotions generated during family gatherings, noise, crowds and parents disciplining other people's children, which may bring out "the mama-bear instinct."
In a November fight at the Susquehanna Township Chuck E. Cheese's, a woman in her 30s grabbed some tokens out of the hand of a 6-year-old who was playing a video game, telling him to stop hogging the game, according to the Journal. The boy got his mother, screaming ensued and another man grabbed the boy's mother by the throat and pushed her against the game machine.
Alcohol, which is served at 70 percent of the chain's restaurants, also plays a role in incidents elsewhere, officials said. The Manheim Township restaurant does not serve alcohol.
Staff writer Cindy Stauffer can be reached at cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024.
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