To the editor:

Recently, my husband and I took our baby to a restaurant and asked for a high chair. When my husband brushed the crumbs off of the seat, his finger was sliced with a piece of broken glass. He then found several other small shards embedded in the varnish. Had our baby, in her sundress, sat in that seat, her legs would have been shredded.

This was obviously an unusual situation, but it speaks to a larger problem we’ve encountered: the state of high chairs at restaurants. We frequently eat out with our baby. Many restaurants we’ve been to have high chairs with broken safety straps; most have chairs that haven’t been wiped off in recent memory.

I like to think we’re good customers: We treat staff with respect, clean up after our baby and do our best to make sure we don’t bother other patrons. It would be nice if we could be sure the chair in which our child sits wasn’t a safety or health hazard. A little basic maintenance is all we ask.

Katie Conrad,

Lawrence