Charging For Height?

A restaurant on Long Island is under fire for its billing policy. Whereas age typically determines who can order from the child's menu and who can order only regular fare, Japanese restaurant Sushi Park in Commack judges children based on their height.

Yes, the size of your dinner check is based on the size of your body. If your child is taller than a certain height, you will have to pay the adult price.

The bizarre rule outraged Amy Kaplan, who left the restaurant when the server informed her that they'd be charging her 11-year-old daughter Nikki as an adult because she's too tall.

"She was two inches over and they said she would be charged a full-price adult meal, and I thought that was ridiculous because she's 11 years old," Kaplan said.

"We walked out. I wasn't going to pay that."

Sushi Park's child fare policy allows children to pay only half-price, as long as they're between 3 1/2 feet and 4 1/2 feet tall.

When told by CBS 2 HD that Nikki was only a child and that the family thought the policy was discriminatory, one of the Sushi Park employees tried to give some insight into the restaurant's thinking.

"Actually, you know, we're not concentrating only on the age, how old are they. Are they 8-year or 10-year, 11 or 17," the employee said.

The restaurant even posts a measuring chart against the wall to double-check its patrons.

Amy Kaplan was not buying that rationale.

"They can't charge more based on weight, or based on sexual orientation or on the color of your skin," she said. "Why should they charge her more because she's tall and has tall genes in the family?"

Perhaps the real culprit in this case is Nikki's father, Howard, who stands 6-foot-4 inches tall.

And while Nikki may be tall for her age, her mother says she eats like a bird and to pay $24.99 instead of half is wrong.

"I'd probably eat some rice and some rolls and some soup. That's it," Nikki said.

Currently, the law does not prohibit restaurants from charging by height. The Kaplan family has contacted their representatives to change that.