‘It dictated the whole atmosphere’: why some landlords are banning kids from pubs

The Kenton in Hackney, London, where the landlord said children were often let loose, unsupervised by their parents. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

“It was like the wild west. If you had an hour, I could talk you through so many scenarios,” says Egil Johansen, the landlord of the Kenton pub in Hackney, east London. He sounds exhausted just remembering them.

Johansen is still shaken by the three-year-old who recently toddled behind the bar and tumbled down the cellar hatch while his parents sat, oblivious, in a different part of the pub.