The subscription fees for each of the service mentioned above are about the same, at about $10 / month. I don't believe they are checked for safety as much as they should be.YouTube Music vs. I do not believe (the balls) are taken out enough. ![]() Whether or not they do what is expected of them varies from store to store. But he went on to say some operators fall short: "Each company has a daily checklist. They are safe, and most of them do a very good job of sanitizing this equipment," Antonacci said. ""There are no cases of sickness or terminal illnesses. But for the most part, the criticism is purely unfounded, he said. He predicts ball pits won't be around anymore a few years from now. Cloud-based Play Space Inc., a company that assembles, disassembles, inspects and cleans play equipment.Īntonacci said his company, which serves restaurants such as Burger King and McDonald's throughout the Southeast, removes about 200 ball pits a year. A growing number of fast-food restaurants are removing their ball pits when they wear out and opting not to put them in new facilities, according to David Antonacci, owner of St. The public may not be skeptical or critical enough to provoke lawmakers, but the threat of complaints and lawsuits is getting to restaurant operators. Unless consumers started raising many more complaints, Bagley said he doubts the Legislature is going to think about mandating ball-pit inspections. The local division that inspects restaurants gets about two complaints a year from parents concerned that a ball pit is too dirty. "We do make suggestions that these things be cleaned every 30 days or so and that it's not a bad idea to run the balls through the dishwasher," said Judd Bagley, a department spokesman. While the state inspects all restaurant kitchens, ball pits are not on the checklist. (Now I can't say that I've seen these rigorous hourly inspections, and I've spent some hours in my life watching the ball pits.)Īccording to the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulations in Tallahassee, there is no cleaning standard for ball-pit operators. said in a statement faxed to me that its staff spot-cleans the ball pits hourly and that the balls are removed and sanitized at least once a week. He credits parents and staff for retrieving foreign objects from the pits before they are lost or buried.īurger King Corp. Carne was glad to say he had never found any dirty diapers himself. There is also the occasional pizza crust or drink cup. He agreed with Rice that shoes and socks are the most frequent things found in the pits. "This way we know it's absolutely, positively done 100 percent," said Jeff Carne, of Chuck E. Once every two weeks an outside cleaning company, Brandon-based Play Space Ace, removes the balls and cleans the lining of the pit as well as the balls. They are placed in large mesh bags and soaked in a solution of hot water and bleach. Cheese's on 58th Street N sorts though the pit each day for foreign objects and removes the balls once a week to sterilize them. The most common foreign objects are shoes, he said. ![]() Each restaurant is instructed to go in and clean out the ball pits every day. "The most dangerous thing in there is another kid," said John Rice, marketing director for Irving, Texas-based Chuck E. ![]() Okay, so there are no snakes, but clearly these pits do become repositories for French fries, socks, runny noses, dirty diapers and more. "The snakes will crawl into the ball pit because it is dark and warm in there." Now common sense says the last place a rattlesnake would choose to curl up and relax is in a hot ball pit frequented by loud, jumping children.īut to reinforce common sense, Miami-based Burger King issued a statement in October 1998: "To be positively clear, the incident outlined in the e-mail has no basis in fact relative to any Burger King restaurants." The fast-food giant posted a telephone number for concerned consumers to call. "This happens more frequently than not," the warning on the Internet version read. One well-traveled fiction is of a 3-year-old boy bitten to death by rattlesnakes living in an outdoor ball pit at a Burger King. For at least two years, stories have been circulating from word of mouth and the Internet about hidden horrors. Ball pits offer enough mystery that they have made it to the urban legend circuit.
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