'Chest Started Burning': Vinings Restaurant Mistakenly Serves Toddler Alcohol: ICYMI

VININGS, GA -- A family enjoying lunch at a Vinings restaurant got a shock when their toddler was served alcohol instead of apple juice, Patch has learned. The incident has shaken the family, but could have turned out much worse.

Alexis Smith, the little girl's mother, told local media that the meal, which happened Sunday after church, started off like any other. "Everything was normal," Smith told WXIA-TV. SIGN UP: To get notified of more local news like this, click here to sign up for the Smyrna Patch. Or find your Atlanta-area town here. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.

Smith said they requested apple juice for Aaliyah, their toddler -- and that's when things went awry. When they got up to leave, they noticed that their daughter was "not her usual self." That's when the child's father decided to check the juice that the server brought.

"We were about to leave, my spouse got the juice, it was in the kid's cup, he tasted it and his chest started burning," she was quoted as saying. Smith also tasted the juice, and that's when they realized: Their baby had been served alcohol.

They called the manager, who confirmed to them that unfortunately their child was indeed served alcohol; an apple juice container had been mislabeled. Smith said that she became emotional and started to sob.

And the incident could have been much worse. They said the server originally asked if they wanted the girl's apple juice in her sippy cup. They declined, but if they would have let that happen, their little girl would have been sipping alcohol the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, the apple juice-alcohol mix-up is not as uncommon as would be imagined. In March, a 2-year-old in Asheville, North Carolina was served alcohol at an Applebee's.

In Michigan in 2011, a 15-month-old was also served alcohol instead of apple juice at an Applebee's. In that case, the child was hospitalized.

Thankfully, little Aaliyah will be OK. The family took the child to a doctor to get her checked out, and there were no abnormalities. "She was a little off balance," Smith told the TV station.

Image via Youtube / WXIA