OC parents BEWARE about "The Lab" in Costa Mesa. Horrible!
Hi everyone,
I just wanted everyone on this site to know about our terrible experience yesterday morning at "The Lab" in Costa Mesa.
With the holidays coming up, we wanted to get our Christmas photo done with LO and send them out to family/friends. So, we've shopped and eaten at "The Lab" a ton and thought that this would be the perfect backdrop for a 1 year old Santa Claus (baby dressed in Santa suit). They have really good colorful walls, textured stones, water features, etc. We even saw a professional photographer finishing up photographing kids and thought - this must be a really popular place to use. We noticed that they looked really rushed and didn't think much of it.
As my friend got ready to shoot the picture of LO, DH, and I, a security guard came up and said that we could not take any pictures. At a mall? He said property management forbid anyone and would take action. We asked if we could speak with a property management person to inquire about granting us permission to just take a couple family (non-commercial) photos for five minutes. A lady from property management talks to us on the guard's cell phone and says that no only is this not allowed, ever - she then demands that we leave the premises immediately. We were shocked and felt like we had done something wrong. The security guard even apologized to us - he must think this is ridiculous too.
So much for being family friendly. Beware of the Lab and I guess the Camp (because they are managed by the same property management group). I'm really disappointed that in beautiful OC, there is a place as special as "The Lab" that treats families this way. My husband says we're boycotting the place now.... How sad.
Just wanted everyone to know, since we're always looking for fun places to visit with LOs, and also looking for cool places to photograph at.
Re: OC parents BEWARE about "The Lab" in Costa Mesa. Horrible!
Wow, that sucks! What a bummer, that place is great for pictures!
We must have gotten really lucky, cause we just took our family photos there this morning. We were there super early (9:30ish), so there was barely anyone there and a lot of the stores weren't even open yet. Maybe that's why nobody said anything to us?
Sucks you and your family went through that experience! You definitely shouldn't be harassed like that. If it was so against the "rules", there should be signs posted saying so.
I bet the Lab got fed up with everyone going there to just take pictures and enacted this "rule".
boooooooooooo! THAT SUCKS!!
We did our engagement shoot there last year with no problems. I heard they recently came up with the strict rules, but I had no idea how rude they were being to people about it.
I'm so sorry you had to deal with that!
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