Regal Entertainment Group is now searching moviegoers’ bags at its cinemas. Two clips reveal the fruitlessness of this overreactive security theater:
Jeff Bock, box office analyst for theater-industry research firm Exhibitor Relations, predicted the policy will lower the anxiety of theatergoers but could pose other problems.
“Implementing this is probably a good idea,” he said. “But it seems undercooked. How is this going to work? The protocol needs to be defined. Exactly what are they doing and what kind of training are you giving to employees?
“It’s a pretty big thing to ask for 16-year-old employees to search through bags for possible firearms. This kind of changes the duties of a theater employee from making popcorn and sweeping floors to basically being a low-rent security guard. Maybe this falls to the manager of the theater to search … We now have to deal with the consequences of what if they find something in the bag.
“Obviously, all the people who sneak in Subway sandwiches are going to be mortified,” Bock added. “Maybe that’s the Regal ulterior motive. Stopping illegal Milk Duds from getting into theaters” [Maria Puente, “Regal Theaters May Search Bags at Door,” USA Today, 2015.08.19].
…and…
On Regal’s Facebook page, backlash came quickly from across the country with some complaining about medical safety issues, and others about conceal carry gun rights.
One woman posted on the company’s Facebook page, “Just returned 2 movie tickets because ticket collector wanted to check my bag for a gun… Didn’t ask to frisk my husband who was also carrying so i guess your policy isn’t flawless” [“Regal Cinemas Now Checking Bags at Theaters,” ClickOrlando.com via KOTA-TV, updated 2015.08.19].
I think going to a movie with a gun in one’s pocket is reckless, but letting a moviehouse employee with no security training rifle through my backpack (hey, I’ve got errands to run, petitions to carry…) and my wife’s purse invades my privacy without really really protecting us from the overhyped possibility that a one-in-a-million gunman will pop in the side door and blast away or that we’ll get caught in some concealed carrier’s crossfire.
Regal has no cinemas in South Dakota—the nearest are in Omaha and Minneapolis—but if our Carmikes and other players follow suit, they’ve given me that much more reason to wait for movies to come out on Netflix… whose stock, strangely, went down 7.84% yesterday as part of a two-week correction. Perhaps one search of her purse by a stranger will also help convince my lovely wife that a 65-inch television really wouldn’t be such an extravagant purchase.
Growing up in Pierre, if a lady want to bring her purse into a movie she had to open it to prove she had no outside beverages or snacks..
This could get interesting. Maybe even kinky. Theaters should assign an armed guard for every moviegoer. Then the city would assign each armed guard their own cop to make sure the guards don’t shoot anyone illegally. Then the ACLU could assign watchers to every cop so their is no violations of anyone’s civil rights and wingnuts could appoint the KKK to observe the ACLU ans the Southern Poverty Law Center would watch the KKK and the theater would be packed and there would be full employment and no one would be able to go to the bathroom or get snacks and there would be all kinds of lawsuits and tempers would flare and people would kill each other and then the clean up crew comes in and gets ready for the second feature.
That’s funny Mike.
I haven’t heard anything about the Regal theatres here in MN. That surprises me. Maybe it will be in the Sunday Strib. I’ll let y’all know.
It was on HLN Thursday morning with the ever lovely Robin Meade.