A 63-year-old self-described “Lego fanatic” who was denied admission to a Legoland because he wasn’t accompanied by a child has been invited back — but with a catch.
The Legoland Discovery Centre in Vaughan, Ont., has invited John St-Onge of Windsor back to its recently opened location, but only on one of its monthly “adult nights.”
St-Onge, who as an adult Lego enthusiast has collected 72 Lego sets with 50,000 pieces, drove four hours from Windsor several weeks ago to attend the theme park with his adult daughter, but the two were turned away because of a Legoland policy not to admit adults without children.
With controversy swirling around the policy, Legoland softened the blow to St-Onge by offering to compensate him for the cost of his failed trip, and has also offered him two complimentary passes to Legoland’s next “adult night” in August.
"My dad is pretty excited that we get to go back, we get to have our father-daughter day that was kind of ruined before it started," daughter Nicole said, as quoted at CTV News.
She told the National Post they would have gladly come for the adults night, if Legoland had advertised their no-adults-without-children policy.
Legoland’s policy is mentioned on its website, though not on the home page. St-Onge said the ad he had seen for Legoland didn’t mention the policy.
“The only thing I wanted out of this is for them to change their advertisements so this won’t happen to anyone else,” John St-Onge told the Post. “But still, I am excited and I am happy.”
All the same, St-Onge had said earlier he felt “discriminated against” by a policy that seemed to imply he was a pedophile by virtue of not having any underage children.
Lara Hannaford, marketing manager for the Toronto-area Legoland, said the company is standing by its policy, CTV News reports.
She said earlier Legoland "is a child attraction so we do have this in place to protect the families and children that visit."
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