A mum was left "very upset" after the owner of a cafe handed her a fine due to her son wetting himself in the soft play area of the venue.
Yan and her son, from Brisbane, Australia, attended music classes every Wednesday and made it a ritual to stay at the cafe afterwards for the mum to have lunch while her son enjoyed the play area.
The mum says her two-year-old son has only had a couple of accidents outside of their home since he stopped wearing daytime nappies earlier in the year.
During a recent visit, Yan checked whether he needed to go to the toilet before he ran away to play, but 20 minutes later he returned in tears, embarrassed that he had wet himself.
The mum changed his clothes and asked him to show her where it had happened, with her son pointing to the door of the ball pit, so Yan got out her wipes to clean the area while apologising to those around them.
Yan said it had happened in a corner on a plastic mat with none of the play balls nearby. Before she had a chance to alert the staff, they came over and began spraying the area with sanitiser.
The owner then approached the parent and said: "In this situation, you have to pay a fine".
In the loud atmosphere of the play area, she thought she had been asked to pay a fine of $15 (£7.90) but when she got home and checked the receipt, she saw she had actually been charged $50 (£26.40), as reported by Kidspot.
The mum said: "I was so upset, I thought 'that’s so expensive'. Jayden had one accident before at [the cafe], but it was in the eating area and that was mopped up without anything else happening, so I was very surprised at this."
Yan phoned the cafe to dispute the charge, and says staff sent her a list of the venue's terms and conditions, but she saw no mention of fines or cleaning fees.
However, the owner has said her staff regularly clean up accidents without any issue, but on this occasion the child had done it in the ball pit, which left them with a far bigger operation.
The owner said the cleaning cost her $130 (£68.60), and she had asked Yan to cover just $50 of that.
"This is a public area and I have to take responsibility for the other families who come here," she said, adding that she has now put up a sign warning customers that they could face a fine for 'contaminations and damages'.
But regular customer Yan says she won't be going back, arguing: "It’s not about the $50 - just felt sorry for my son. He’s only two and a half, it’s not his fault."
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