Ball park lemonade lands boy in foster care
Categories: Kids 5-7, Just for dads, Weird but true, Alcohol & drugs
A few weeks ago, Christopher Ratte took his 7-year-old son Leo to see a ballgame in Detroit. Upon arriving at Comerica Park, they bought some refreshments - a beer for dad, a lemonade for Leo - and settled into their seats to watch the Tigers. But what should have been a fun day of father-son bonding turned into an unbelievable nightmare when a security guard spotted Leo and his lemonade. Turns out that what dad purchased wasn't regular lemonade, but hard lemonade. If you don't know about hard lemonade, you are not alone. Christopher Ratte had no idea that the beverage his son had been sipping on for nine innings contained 5% alcohol.
Ratte explained his mistake to the security guard who promptly confiscated the lemonade and called the cops. Leo was taken to a hospital where he was examined and found to have no alcohol in his blood.
"Obviously, I made a mistake in buying this lemonade, which I didn't realize was alcoholic," Ratte said. "I probably should have read the label carefully, so I'm not critical of the police who were concerned. I just thought they overreacted terribly."
Just how much did they overreact? Instead of releasing Leo to his parents, he was taken into custody by Wayne County Children's Protective Services and spent the weekend in foster care. When he was finally released to his mother, his father was ordered to move out of the house. Christopher Ratte spent spent two weeks in a hotel before the case was dropped and he was allowed back home with his family.
CPS may have dropped the case, but Christopher Ratte has not. He and his wife have filed a formal complaint with the CPS ombudsman's office claiming the treatment they received was excessive.
This story makes me angry, sad and a little scared for families living within the reach of Wayne County Child Protective Services.
Ratte explained his mistake to the security guard who promptly confiscated the lemonade and called the cops. Leo was taken to a hospital where he was examined and found to have no alcohol in his blood.
"Obviously, I made a mistake in buying this lemonade, which I didn't realize was alcoholic," Ratte said. "I probably should have read the label carefully, so I'm not critical of the police who were concerned. I just thought they overreacted terribly."
Just how much did they overreact? Instead of releasing Leo to his parents, he was taken into custody by Wayne County Children's Protective Services and spent the weekend in foster care. When he was finally released to his mother, his father was ordered to move out of the house. Christopher Ratte spent spent two weeks in a hotel before the case was dropped and he was allowed back home with his family.
CPS may have dropped the case, but Christopher Ratte has not. He and his wife have filed a formal complaint with the CPS ombudsman's office claiming the treatment they received was excessive.
This story makes me angry, sad and a little scared for families living within the reach of Wayne County Child Protective Services.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Judy 4-29-2008 @ 3:46PM
At the same time, if the case was that there was a father who knowingly gave his son hard lemonade (and how does he not know that it has alcohol in it? Does he think "Hard" lemonade means caffeinated or something?), the police saw it, and *didn't* do anything, then everyone would be arguing that the kid should have been taken by CPS. So they can't win, can they?
I think this was a little extreme, but at the same time I question the parenting abilities of someone who doesn't read the label on a product he's never bought before and serves it to his kid. I've had these before (years ago) and they were in the same section of the store as beer, not with sodas and lemonades. Even if he bought it at a game, you would think it would be obvious what drinks were "soft" drinks, and what were "harder," like, um HARD lemonade.
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Meagan 4-29-2008 @ 5:43PM
He though it was JUICE, and this was a concession stand, not a store where everything is separated out. I doubt most parents would look that closely at a fruit drink they bought for their kid, hell, he probably thought he was making a health conscious choice in giving him lemonade instead of soda.
ikate 4-29-2008 @ 4:44PM
Reading more on the story and seeing a photo of the menu you can better understand - the menu just says "Mikes Lemonade" and "Mikes Cranberry"...if you didn't know the brand of Mike's Hard drinks you would have no idea from the menu. And think of drinks like Fuze that are served in bottles...I do think it's an easy mistake to make.
And the fact that they wouldn't relase the boy to his aunts or even is mother is a bit over the top.
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W. H. Heydt 4-29-2008 @ 5:10PM
CPS consists of a bunch of little tin gods that think they can get away with almost anything in the name of "the children". Facts have no influence with them.
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Holly 4-29-2008 @ 5:47PM
I can completely understand this mistake. It happened to one of my husband's professors in grad school. My husband was giving his final presentation to a large group of individuals. And this professor was overly critical and mean. Turns out, a foreign student had given him Mike's Lemonade. The professor, who didn't drink, didn't realize it.
Good thing he doesn't drink normally, because he was MEAN when he had a little alcohol. He later issued a formal apology. I always felt a little bad for the guy.
Maybe we should sue Mike's for poor labeling! Just kidding!
Holly@http://hollytriedit.blogspot.com
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Tamyu 4-29-2008 @ 7:28PM
I wouldn`t have known. I`m not at all familiar with the drink.
Let`s just imagine for a moment that the father does not drink. That he`s not one to know the the brands or be familiar with the terminology. Not everyone watches television, and not everyone thinks that deeply when they order what they see as a normal drink.
If you see a sign with lemonade written on it, no mention of alcohol, I would certainly hope that most people normally think of the regular, non-alcoholic version.
Yes, he could have taken a closer look at the bottle. But I have a feeling he just accepted lemonade as lemonade and probably passed it quickly to his thirsty son.
If you ordered a drink that you did not equate with alcohol, do you really check to make sure it isn`t? If you ordered orange juice, do you check every label? Unless your child has an allergy, I have a feeling most parents don`t.
I think that there is absolutely NO problem with the police stepping in. I think they should have asked, given him a warning, and if they deemed it necessary had the child checked at the hospital. CPS talking with the parents, looking into the case, etc is also fine.
Days in foster care, and removing the father from the home is overkill. Even if the father was giving his child alcohol willfully, and the child needed to be removed from the home - this was not a case of life and death for the child. If there were no signs of previous abuse, they could have looked into the case FIRST. This is just a case of shoot first, ask later.
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Judy 4-29-2008 @ 7:46PM
I still didn't watch the video, so if it shows the actual concession sign, I haven't seen it.
Now I wonder, though, if the father just asked the concession workers for "lemonade," in which case the person who sold it to him should have double checked and made sure he wanted alcoholic lemonade, and then it's a different story altogether. If I order an iced tea, then I expect to have no alcohol, but if I say "Long Island Iced Tea" I'm expecting something different, and I'd think this should be the same thing: if the person says "I want a lemonade," then they should get a regular lemonade, but if they say "Mike's Lemonade" then, well, maybe there should have been a sign somewhere explaining.
Unless it is a product I have bought before, and especially if I'm going to serve it to my kids, I ALWAYS read the labels. My kids don't have allergies, but there are certain things I don't want them to have, so I always check. The differences in the ingredients between two of the same product from different brands is amazing. Two different store brands of sour cream have very different ingredient labels. I guess I assumed most people did the same.
Maybe that's why I'm having trouble with this. If I went to a game (or anywhere) and ordered my kid a lemonade, I *would* immediately look at the bottle to see what was in it. A lemonade from a fountain in a cup, no, I can't see the ingredients, but from a bottle, if it was a brand I'd never had before, I would definitely look.
If this was in a bottle, I'm having a really hard time with someone who didn't notice on the bottle that it says the alcohol content on it. Are people really saying that they wouldn't notice, or wonder what was meant on the bottle when it said "hard" lemonade?
I think it's extreme the treatment they got, and I'm not siding with CPS, but I find it kind of scary that so many people think they wouldn't have noticed.
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Meagan 4-29-2008 @ 10:17PM
Again... it's not that obvious. They showed in the video where it said alcohol content... it's very thin print and doesn't exactly stand out. I generally read all my labels as well because I don't want to drink anything with high fructose corn syrup, but most people, parents or not, do not. And honestly at a ball game even if they are usually diligent, probably they're going to relax because the options are limited.
I'm not sure why you find it alarming that people wouldn't have noticed... if you look at the picture above and did NOT know that was an alcoholic beverage, there's really no obvious sign that it's not for kids.
Obviously if you read the small print you'd figure it out, but this seems like a pretty honest mistake. I have a feeling from now on this guy WILL be as diligent as you are with labels, but it's really a shame that he should have to be. If anyone is at fault here, it's the concession stand for not making it more clear. Possibly they, like you, thought everyone already knew.
Judy 4-29-2008 @ 11:27PM
Was it in a glass bottle? Because that would tip me off.
I haven't watched the video. I'm not on dial-up, but they still sometimes take awhile to load.
I think I'm coming off as being much harder on the father than I mean to be. I can see how it was an honest mistake, but I just have a hard time seeing that he didn't notice it at all. And if you've ever tried one of these, it *doesn't* just taste like lemonade. But kids are less likely to notice that, I guess.
Really, I think they were way too hard on this guy, but it kind of concerns me about whether other parents make the same mistake.
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Mel 4-30-2008 @ 12:09AM
Judy, have you ever heard of Snapple? That's served in glass bottles.
Judy 4-30-2008 @ 8:33AM
Isn't Snapple the exception to the rule? And if you'd never had it before, might you go, wow, weird, it's in a glass bottle?
I know, there are some root beers sold in glass bottles too. But glass bottles are definitely the exception, and it's always noticeable.
I think I just figured everyone was a label reader.
Seriously, I can see how it happened, because I realize not everyone does read labels, and many people don't care at all what is in the foods and drinks they are giving their kids. So, fine, a man orders his kid a lemonade, doesn't wonder at all why it's called a "hard" lemonade, doesn't even take a glance at the label, his kid gets booze. I can see how and why it happened. I don't think he should have had his kid taken away for any length of time.
At the same time, though, back to my original comment: what if it had been a father who had knowingly given his child a hard lemonade? And the cops had let it slide? Or CPS hadn't acted? Wouldn't everyone then be outraged?
colamum 4-30-2008 @ 9:33AM
Isnt it a parents job to check on a product they are not familiar with, regardless of what it is?
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Jeff 4-30-2008 @ 12:51PM
First - regarding the glass bottle clue - I haven't been to a ball park or dome, whatever in years that allowed glass anything. Glass bottles get thrown and are dangerous. Beer comes in plastic at the ball park nowadays.
Call it malicious, negligent, or ignorant, I don't care. Bottom line is a man handed his son an alcoholic beverage and broke the law.
"Officer, I didn't know I was going over the speed limit." Yeah, that's a valid excuse.
I make mistakes with my two-year-old. And when I do, there are consequences.
Does the punishment fit the crime? Maybe yes, maybe no. There's no such thing as a perfect system.
You can bet that this guy learned from this and will not make the same mistake again.
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Stephanie 4-30-2008 @ 6:33PM
Mike's does not contain the ingredients on the back label like other fruit drinks. I've tried to look on it, to see what the actual ingredients were (like how much sugar is actually in this alcoholic drink I'm consuming.) Can't be done.
And as the other commenter explained, all bottled drinks at sporting events are in plastic containers.
If the guy ordered a lemonade, he probably thought he received a lemonade.
How about some accountability for the vendor?
And yes, he was wrong to not "check" for that size 6 font on the very bottom of the bottle to realize it's alcoholic since he's an absent minded professor, out of touch with the popular culture, not knowing it was possible to order an alcoholic juice drink. But this warrants removal of the beverage, and the payment of a fine. Not the removal of the child.
Is the child hurt? No.
Is the child showing any signs of alcohol in his system? No.
Should we remove him from his parents? No...that will cause more damage to him emotionally in the long run, and also cost tax payers money for no reason.
Common sense folks.
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JustMyThoughts 4-30-2008 @ 9:35PM
"Was it in a glass bottle? Because that would tip me off."
Why? So is Snapple.
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Dashin Fashion Children\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ 5-01-2008 @ 5:33AM
Hard to believe that a simple mistake could have been taken so far. What about the concession stand that sold it to them. I hope they win their case....
Laura
http://www.dashinfashion.com
http://www.mykidsfashion.com
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crystal 5-01-2008 @ 10:16AM
It happend to me and my husband one time,
I do drink, My husband however does not, he cannot stand it, Whatever i do not mind, We went out to eat onetime and saw they had mikes lemonade, Well i went to the bathroom while he ordered the drinks, I came back as the Drinks arrived, and noticed a mikes lemonade place in front of him... i kinda looked at him funny., hunny why did u get achol you never drink... he goes no hunny i got a lemonade, I had to explain to him the Brand and all that.... He saw mikes lemonade and thought it was one of thoes healthy type lemonades....... i can see it happning... why did the vendor not saw something, usually if you buy your kid a drink you give it to him after you get it?....
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azcrum 5-02-2008 @ 6:11AM
I think this was an honest mistake and the police and CPS went a bit too far. First of all, what man is going to buy his 7 yr old a bottle of booze in the midst of a baseball game in the stands? I've tasted those Lemonades and they pretty much taste like the softdrink.....I am surprised the kid didn't get sick.
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carrie 5-14-2008 @ 6:42PM
They should seek damages from the concession. I didn't think you were supposed to sell more than one drink to one person at one time since identification could not be checked on the other recipient.
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kathy 5-22-2008 @ 11:07PM
"Isn't Snapple the exception to the rule? And if you'd never had it before, might you go, wow, weird, it's in a glass bottle?"
NO!, its not. there's numerous brands of water and tea that come in glass bottles. Theres also root beer, which you mentioned, and pepsi can also be found in a glass bottle. My knowledge of this topic is very limited so I'm sure there' many more examples out there.
"At the same time, though, back to my original comment: what if it had been a father who had knowingly given his child a hard lemonade? And the cops had let it slide? Or CPS hadn't acted? Wouldn't everyone then be outraged?"
Yeah they would be, but what does that have to do with this particular case where the father didn't know and the CPS obviously overreacted?
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