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Most of us remember anxiously awaiting the birthday when we’d become old enough to drink in public legally, but it seems that at some nightlife venues in east Asia, customers are facing another age cap – when they become too old.
Earlier this year, Tori Yaro Dogenzaka, which is an izakaya – an affordable Japanese pub – in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, placed a sign up which reads: ‘Entrance limited to customers between the ages of 29 and 39. This is an izakaya for younger generations. Pub for under 40-only.’
In tiny writing, it’s clarified that older customers can be admitted as long as there’s someone aged 39 or younger in their party, and friends and family members of employees are exempt from the cap. There’s also technically no way to legally enforce this rule.
According to Japan Today, door staff will be checking to see if customers are in ‘appropriate condition’, though we’re not entirely sure if that refers to their clothes, or how much they’ve had to drink.
Maximum age caps are a rarity in Tokyo – in fact, Tori Yaro Dogenzaka is part of a chain, but the Shibuya outpost remains the only one to introduce a restriction.
That doesn’t mean this ‘soft ban’ has bypassed controversy, though. Online, people have described the move as ‘discriminatory’, and one person posted that ‘there’s a difference between people’s physical and mental ages’, according to euronews.
Why do bars implement maximum age limits?
Toshihiro Nagano is a PR representative for the izakaya chain, and the soft ban apparently boils down to the fact that ‘our customer base is young’ and that it strives to better manage the atmosphere in the bar.
‘With older customers, they tend to make a lot of complaints about the restaurant being too noisy and such, so we decided to limit who’s coming in, so that everyone can go home happy about the experience they had,’ he told Japan Today.
Do other countries implement maximum age limits at their pubs and bars?
Yes – the practice is actually much more established in South Korea. Seoul’s university district Hongdae has clubs, pubs – basically anywhere with a dancefloor – which enforce maximum age restrictions for over 30, 28 and in some instances, 25-year-olds.
So, why is this the case? Well, similar to the izakaya wanting to create a young person-friendly atmosphere, it seems to be mostly about venues wanting to cater to ultra-specific age groups. In a discussion on Reddit, user Tracuivel said: ‘I am long past those days myself, but at least back in my day, the Korean idea of old was still extremely young; if [maximum age restrictions are] still a thing, then I don’t know how fun it’s going to be for someone 30+ anyway.’
But it doesn’t stop at nightlife venues. ‘No senior zones’ are a phenomenon that has sprung up considerably over the last couple of years, from coffee shops to sports facilities, according to a 2023 article by The Korean Times. It’s also been critiqued as discriminatory, particularly because the country has a growing ageing population.
Are maximum age limits a new nightlife trend?
Japan Times also outlines that Yaoya Ba, another izakaya, albeit a swankier one, has implemented a soft age restriction, but this one is instead to prevent people who are too young from attending. And while in another Reddit discussion one user wrote that they ‘couldn’t even join a pub crawl tour [in Tokyo] because I was 40 and the limit was 39’, the general sentiment is that locals don’t expect this to develop into a trend.
One posted that ‘It’s an izakaya in Shibuya. Which means now there are only 99,999 izakaya left’ and another said that a more effective proposal is a sign which reads: ‘If it’s too loud you’re too old’.
So, are maximum age restrictions going to proliferate Tokyo’s nightlife? Right now, it doesn’t seem so – perhaps fine-tuning their spaces for particular ages will instead be channelled through drinks prices and style choices (as has always been the case), but either way, we’ll keep you posted.
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