Interested in seeing people's take on this

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Aside from her causing a scene and refusing to leave. Remove that and just hear her argument. Everyone I've talked to disagreed with her behavior, but many have agreed with her argument.

I've only talked to about 5-6 people about this so far and the ones who tend to be more liberal on political views have been more sympathetic to the lady. So I was interested in seeing how it would pan out here.

See my previous post.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by imind

And I will tell you it is not that the music is too loud! It just sucks!

Go Led Zeppelin!

[imind]

But I would say the "progressive" notion (not Democrats) that people are not responcible for their behavior, it is society that is oppressing your kids expression and makes them bad has soured our whole culture and driven personal responcibility out of the picture.

this is the first time i've ever heard anything like this. EVAR!

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

And I think it was a courtesy that you even offered a refund. They didn't deserve that much.

agreed, it is understand in our society that you have to be quiet in movie theaters for others to enjoy the flick. So I would have kicked them out without a refund for being unruly

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by imind

this is the first time i've ever heard anything like this. EVAR!

You need to get out more. You don't know of the self-esteem and "learning" is not about being taught anything by an oppressive authority, but about personal discovery? Let me get you a chair in a public school. One of those that are too small and have a half desk attached. Or better yet take any college educational training course because that is what it is all about these days.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Originally Posted by JaJae

To me this situation can be broken down into a conservative/liberal mindset and I'm interested in seeing how people respond to this.

Basically I run a movie theater, last night we had a bunch of kids come in. We're a local theater, privately owned. On Friday's we get a bunch of kids dropped off here. We can literally have 100 unsupervised kids a single auditorium. By kids I mean 12-16 year olds. Needless to say, as a whole they're loud, rude and obnoxious.

We had a number of complaints in a theater last night about the noise from the kids. Basically what I did was I asked the kids to put a row between their seats. In other words they could all sit together in the same row still, but they needed a row in front of them and in back of them to prevent the turning around and talking to each other in huddles during the movie. I asked a few kids a couple times and they refused. I wasn't rude and we didn't have an altercation. Everyone else complied except for about 4 girls who wanted to sit in front of their 6 other friends. I casually asked them a couple times to change their seats as I was running up and down dealing with all the other kids. One of the kids copped an attitude and left. Apparently her mother was in another theater. Now I had about thirteen 12 year olds and this mother complaining about me reseating them. For the record, they were not behaving themselves. They weren't as bad as some of the other kids, but they were talking back and forth across the seats.

The mother starts complaining outside the auditorium. I'm listening to her argument and the girls started talking. And one after another they all started talking over each other until they were all shouting at me. I asked them politely to please quiet their voices because they're outside the doors and the people in the theater could hear them.

At this point the mother started screaming at the top of her lungs and went into a hissy fit saying "No, WE WILL NOT BE QUIET UNTIL YOU LISTEN TO US!!!! blah blah blah"

At which point I told her to leave the theater. She refused. I told her I would call the police if she didn't quiet down and talk to me outside the theater where she couldn't disrupt the people watching their movies. We were currently in the theater hallway, not in an auditorium, but she was screaming loud enough to where even in most of the lobby people in some theaters would still be able to hear her.

She flatly refused. I called the police. I know my rights and the laws for my state regarding this issue. It's not the first time I've had to call the police over a parent dispute, advertising complaints, etc. In fact, it happens far more often than you'd think. So leaving the story there and without giving away the ending I'm asking what people's opinions are on this.

Keep in mind, the kids were allowed to watch their movie. They just all couldn't sit where they wanted to. I did offer them refunds if they did not wish to change their seats.

Her stance was basically that we shouldn't "kick children out into the parking lot", and we shouldn't sell them tickets if we're not going to let them sit where they want. To clarify this as well, at no point did we kick any children out of the building... just her.

So what do you guys think? Who's right, who's wrong in terms of morals, ethics and legality.

After reading your post I would say you did nothing wrong and remained coolheaded enough to protect yourself and the theatre.
You handled it much better than I would have. I would have told the woman to just get the hell out and take her brats with her. Also I would have told the woman, now I see why your kids are so rude.

I see no reason to think liberal or conservative about the incident.
Although my guess is that many liberals would side with the mother's point of view. -TZS

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

Now you have done it! I am forced to agree with scrotumvent (type-O)!
Let us just say that when I was a kid way back in the middle ages I was not the best behaved in public. But both mom and dad had a 100% it is your fault attitude. They did not blame other adults or other kids I was with for "my" bad behavior! If you upset an adult you needed to learn some respect. I find it repulsive that some of the "it is all about me" parents are so protective of their kids that everything they do wrong is somebody elses fault! A great way to produce asshole adults!

My mother used to tell us she gets embarrassed easily. And if we do anything to embarrass her we could never show our faces there again. My last visit to Friendlys I was 8 years old:cry:

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by JaJae

My mother used to tell us she gets embarrassed easily. And if we do anything to embarrass her we could never show our faces there again. My last visit to Friendlys I was 8 years old:cry:

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by imind

ibshessuingthetheaterandathreadisstickiedseekingfu lfillmentofyourlegaldefensefund

It ended with a long conversation with the police officer and her having a legal education. I'll explain it all in a bit.

And I've been threatened with at least 50 lawsuits in the 6 years I've been with this theater. No one has ever followed up. The worst we get is a letter to the local liberal newspaper.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by JaJae

It ended with a long conversation with the police officer and her having a legal education. I'll explain it all in a bit.

And I've been threatened with at least 50 lawsuits in the 6 years I've been with this theater. No one has ever followed up. The worst we get is a letter to the local liberal newspaper.

Maybe if you didn't wear those Swastika arm bands at work you wound not have this trouble?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot

You handled it much better than I would have. I would have told the woman to just get the hell out and take her brats with her. Also I would have told the woman, now I see why your kids are so rude.

I see no reason to think liberal or conservative about the incident.
Although my guess is that many liberals would side with the mother's point of view. -TZS

After kicking some kids out and the parents yell at me telling me how much of an angel their kid is, I quite often do tell them that now I understand why their child feels free to cut up in public when nobody is watching them and since I feel they will not learn life's lessons on proper behavior anytime soon I'd appreciate if they didn't bring their child back to the theater anymore.

I do my best to tell people off with a lot of words and not as direct. Cause then they write the papers and/or call the police and it's more of a hassle than it's worth. I get the same satisfaction out of it. I've learned telling people off directly isn't worth it, but I have my moments... lol

This lady I didn't get the chance to though because when I went into the office to call the police, she called from her cell phone and the operator told her to leave the building. I didn't talk to her again until the officer was moderating. My conversation with her before that was nothing other than apologizing for reseating and offering their money back. To which they all started complaining louder and louder until I had to ask them to quiet down because they were yelling at me. Then the mother started screaming about how I wasn't listening to them ( I assume because my response didn't involve letting the kids sit where they wanted) and she wouldn't stop yelling until I complied and let them sit where they wanted. To which I told her if she wasn't going stop being disruptive she had to leave the theater. She refused. I told her again to leave. She refused. I started walking to the lobby and she followed so she could bitch to the back of my head. So then I turned my head to her, raised my voice and told her bluntly to leave or I was calling the police. She started screaming louder. So I walked away into my office and called. I saw her on the security cameras calling as well. The dispatcher said she her partner was on the other line with her and she's being directed out of the theater. She waited outside quietly. I stayed inside to not escalate it. The officer showed up and I missed my chance to be rude

[RMNIXON]

Try living in my hood!

Ok, so some Latino Gang bangers killed a 14 year old black girl in cold blood because she dared to be in their territory! The mother of one of the scum, who was not the actual shooter just the lookout, is telling the press what a sweet kid her son is. Not a member of any Gang. None of them ever are!

And don't forget these gang bangers want respect!

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

Try living in my hood!

Ok, so some Latino Gang bangers killed a 14 year old black girl in cold blood because she dared to be in their territory! The mother of one of the scum, who was not the actual shooter just the lookout, is telling the press what a sweet kid her son is. Not a member of any Gang. None of them ever are!

And don't forget these gang bangers want respect!

There's no gangs out here, it's too upscale. But the kids dress and thing they are. My hometown has gangs. These kids live in one of the top 3 richest counties in America. It's quite humorous having them try to get all "ghetto" on me.

[Donkey®]

Ignorant parents of ignorant kids FTL.

[6SpeedTA95]

She was a shit head who must have eaten her tampon for dinner. I hate that shit. When I worked at BBY we had a parent who would drop their kid(s) off there after school to play our display video games till she got off work. Basically we were a free daycare. The kids slowly started getting more rowdy, refusing to let real customers try the systems/games. One day I said you can not use the game system for more than 10 minutes. "Paying customers and potential customers are what those machines are for, sometimes in the afternoon we dont have many customers if we dont have customers you can play it all you want but if we have customers you need to let them play" I told the kids this after their 5th or 6th day in the store. The next day the kids came in and I saw them come in and one of the kids immediately pointed and said "thats the guy!!!" and the mom proceded to come up to me yelling and screaming going on and on about how if it were white kids I would not have told them to give the machines up to customers and that I was a racist cracker, etc. I told her basically the same thing I told her kids and I added hte fact that we are not her babysitter. That if her kids are dropped off anywhere but a daycare they are expected to behave and if they are at a place of business by themselves and are not purchasing anything and impeding potential customers that there is a problem with that.

Basically same thing happened, I had to call the cops over a screaming bitch mad because Best Buy wasn't going to be her free daycare.

I dont think you did shit wrong. That woman needs to supervise her kids or face the consequences of the potential misbehavings that kids are prone to.

[Stoner]

You're a lot nicer than I am. You went over and beyond the call of duty. You could have kicked them out for refusing to cease talking and disturbing others.

If she gives you any more crap let me know and I'll come over there and beat the mom in the head with a chainsaw

[R-Type]

I might be more liberal minded than you on some issues, but I see no problem with what you did. I probably would've been less tolerant. Anyone disrupting the movie would get a simple choice: STFU or leave without refund. Where or who they sit with is immaterial so long as they comply.

man

[motivez]

I don't see how it's a liberal / conservative issue really. Being liberal doesn't mean lack of manners IMO. Maybe the people you talked to have kids and wouldn't want their kids not to be occupied inside a 'safe', privately owned business for several hours where they're at least somewhat supervised.

IMO you did the right thing, and it's pretty much what I would have done, sans the refund.

If I were in charge, I'd hang up a sign somewhere that says,

"Disrupting a movie will result in removal from theater without a refund."

The fact is, people who disrupt a movie are hurting your business. Who knows how many other people asked for refunds, etc, because their movie was ruined? Those people deserve it, the people who disrupted the movie did not. If they constantly have their movie ruined, they're going to find another theater.

As far as children, depending on the age I might allow them to remain in the lobby to wait for a ride if I kicked them out of a movie, but if they were disruptive out there I'd ask them to wait outside as well.

A business owner has the right to ask anyone they want to leave their place of business for whatever reason they want as far as I'm concerned. No one has any "right" to shop at a certain location or purchase goods, services, etc, from a company who is unwilling to sell to them (I'm not going to get into race or religion or whatever since it's completely unrelated and massively complicated).

The only real argument I can see against kicking kids out is that as a business owner you have a responsibility for the safety of your customers while they're in your place of business, but that's really things like fire hazards, defective products, etc.. Not sure how it applies to the safety of children in a movie theater, or if it even does.

[7960]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Keep in mind, the kids were allowed to watch their movie. They just all couldn't sit where they wanted to. I did offer them refunds if they did not wish to change their seats.

So what do you guys think? Who's right, who's wrong in terms of morals, ethics and legality.

You. It's 'your' theatre, if you want to tell kids (who've already demonstrated they can't choose wisely on their own) where they can sit then there's nothing wrong with that. She went zero to bitch in 7.8 seconds. You even opted to refund their money (you didn't need to)....... (haven't read any other replies yet) how can anyone say what you did was wrong?