I don't resent the fact that there are no-go areas for young children in the evening. Far from it - if ever we get an evening out, the last thing I want is to put up with a screaming child at the next table.

But surely a family attraction such as Brighton's Palace Pier is not a place where people go to get away from children. The other evening, my wife and two daughters, four and six, decided to spend a couple of hours on the pier and were thrown out of a pub at 8pm sharp because they don't allow children in the bar after that time.

This was unfair. It was freezing cold outside and our children had been behaving extremely well. The fact that neither of the pubs (Victoria's or Horatio's) on the pier allows you to have a drink with kids in tow after 8pm is ludicrous.

The pier is the focal point of this holiday town. Could someone tell me whether Brighton and Hove City Council has anything to do with such rules?

-John Hoye, Round Hill Crescent, Brighton