“This was a perfect winter moms’ group place for those of us with infants going stir-crazy,” wrote one woman on onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.com, wondering testily why local mothers could not at least drop in for “a beer once a week when it’s not crowded.”

Of course, the practice of bringing babies and young children to bars is hardly exclusive to Park Slope. The issue has been debated in online message boards in cities like Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Washington.

A woman in Boston, recently posting to yelp.com, a national, user-generated city-guide site, seemed appalled to see a 7-year-old next to her at a bar. (“There were cubes, crayons and candy on top of the bar,” she wrote. “Does anyone else think there’s something wrong with that?”)

In England, the JD Wetherspoon chain of pubs recently implemented a rule making sure that parents who bring young children not only eat a meal, but stay for no more than two rounds. After a recent smoking ban, more families have been bringing children to pubs, and a spokesman for the chain was quoted by the BBC as saying, “Once the children have had their meal, we can’t see a reason why they should still be in the pub.”

In New York, too, the smoking ban has altered the bar’s image. No longer a den of adult sin, the local tavern is now seen as an attractive option for afternoon gatherings among parents. (Neither New York state nor city law forbids minors in bars, although state regulations say children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult, a State Liquor Authority spokesman said.)