Crime Magnet Chuck E. Cheese's In Oak Lawn Is Shutting Down
By Stephen Gossett in News on Dec 8, 2016 7:45PM
A sign is posted in front of a Chuck E. Cheese's in Newark, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Chuck E. Cheese’s, the preferred destination for parents who like their kids’ birthday parties with a side of bland pizza and nightmarish animatronics, has also had a long, rather bizarre problem with violence. That’s been the case in the Chicagoland area, where the beleaguered Oak Lawn location has finally decided to shut its doors, just days after an alleged shooting and one day before the village was set to discuss revoking Cheese’s license.
The last straw was the shooting, which happened on Saturday, but things were so bad that Oak Lawn launched a committee to keep an eye on what was happening at the lawless frontier pizzeria.
And if this sounds like a case of small-town pearl-clutching overreaction, this will probably dissuade that opinion: there were more than 300 calls to police, “mostly for battery and disorderly conduct,” and dozens of arrest at the single location, according to the Tribune's Daily Southtown.
But as we alluded to, this isn’t the isolated wrongdoing of one bad apple. Chuck E. Cheese as a company has a long, documented history of attracting criminality on or near its premises. Perhaps you remember the massive brawl at a Florida location in October, or the huge melee in New York in 2013, or even Chicagoland’s own Arlington Heights in 2009?
The Wall Street Journal noticed the phenomenon way back in 2008, noting that the toxic brew of “alcohol, loud noise, thick crowds and the high emotions of children's birthday parties make the restaurants more prone to disputes than other family entertainment venues.”
"The environment also brings out what security experts call the "mama-bear instinct." A Chuck E. Cheese's can take on some of the dynamics of the animal kingdom, where beasts rush to protect their young when they sense a threat. Stepping in when a parent perceives that a child is being threatened "is part of protective parenting," says Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University and former president of the American Psychological Association. "It is part of the species—all species, in fact—in the animal kingdom," he says. 'We do it all of the time.'"
Psychologist David Schwartz, a professor at the University of Southern California, concurred with that perspective when he spoke to ABC, saying, "birthday parties are really emotional situations. There's frustration and provocation."
Sounds like a truly terrifying dynamic—one that will have to find a new spot to at which to play out, at least in Southwest 'burbs.