Drug users coming to the show

[Frank Cox]

Over the past while I've noticed that more druggies are coming to the show here.

It's really difficult and disheartening to deal with these people. I've always had a few drunks show up once in a while and they either sit down and behave or I throw 'em out.

But these druggies, I really don't know what to do. Legalizing marijuana was a huge mistake, at least as far as I'm concerned here, because so many people seem to show up high these days and that never used to be a problem.

I guess it shows what a sheltered life I lead because when people started coming to the show smelling like that I used to think there must be a skunk outside.

I asked my wife if she thinks we're just getting older and grumpier as time goes by but she doesn't think so.

It seems like the nature of (some of) our clientele is changing, and not for the better.

[Randy Stankey]

...they either sit down and behave or I throw 'em out.

That sums it all up, AFIAC! Purchasing a movie ticket gives you permission to come inside and watch a movie. It does not give you any more rights than if you bought a cheeseburger from McDonalds. You deserve to get what you paid for. That's it!

So does everybody else deserve to get what THEY paid for... a movie. They deserve to watch a movie in a clean, quiet theater without disturbance. If one or more people disturb the peace and quiet of others, trying to watch a movie, they have broken their end of the bargain. They get a chance to quiet down and stop disturbing others or, as you say, "Out, they go!"

If somebody is smoking inside your building, that's a horse of a different color. Smoking of any kind hasn't been allowed in theaters for as long as I can remember and I agree with that rule on the grounds that it disturbs others.

I don't care what people do when they are outside of my theater. If you want to douse yourself in gasoline and light yourself on fire, that's your business. Just don't do it in MY theater!

If you want to smoke up and watch a movie, okay... it might not be something I'd care to do but, what the hell. If you're going to do that stuff, why don't you go outside, behind the dumpster, like people used to do in the old days. If other people can't see it or smell it, nobody will care.

For me, it's not about the substance. It's about the behavior. If people don't behave, the exit is that way! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!

[Ed Gordon]

Advertised as “the ultimate trip,” 2001: A Space Odyssey was the most famous head movie; I first saw it flat on my back and zonked in front of the screen at the Capitol Theater on Broadway and 51st Street. Andrew Sarris famously panned the movie in The Village Voice (“a thoroughly uninteresting failure and the most damning demonstration yet of Stanley Kubrick’s inability to tell a story coherently”) and then, perhaps persuaded by his younger friends, returned to see it a few weeks later, consciousness altered by what he coyly reported was “a smoked substance that I was assured by my contact was somewhat stronger and more authentic than oregano on a King Sano base.”

Head properly adjusted, Sarris now saw “a major work by a major artist.” This leads me to conclude not that marijuana necessarily improves movies, but rather that it facilitates the capacity to remake them in your mind. Filtered through a haze of grass, that which was simple is now complex, while that which was complex becomes unintelligible, and who really cares?

...Smoking at the movies had become universal; even before Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke opened in 1978, everything was a potential magical mystery tour. In my naïveté, I imagined that David Lynch’s Eraserhead—released at midnight in late 1977 and the first commercial movie I reviewed for the Voice—was an aspiring head film, albeit a bummer, and concluded my brief notice with the sneering kicker that while Eraserhead wasn’t “a movie I’d drop acid for,” it would be “a revolutionary act if someone dropped a reel of it into the middle of Star Wars.” By then, however, I was no longer smoking pot at the movies; soon after, I would stop smoking pot to write.

Source: https://www.thenation.com/article/ar...-while-stoned/

[John Thomas]

If you consider filmmaking to be an art, then experiencing film in altered states of mind will always be part of the culture around it.

You should be thankful that weed is the only substance you're concerned about in this context.

I would imagine you're seeing better concession revenue as well thanks to these patrons.

[Mike Blakesley]

In the film days we used to run a concession clip (from Cinema Concepts, I think) that started out with the words, "Got the munchies?" on the screen. That used to get a huge laugh out of some people, but not everyone. I didn't put "being stoned" together with "having the munchies" at first, but once I figured it out, it became a way of finding out who was high at the movies.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I gather Frank is in a location where it is legal. I guess it goes with the territory... people used to hang out just outside the theatre getting their nicotine fix, now it is just a different substance, which one smells worse is highly subjective.

I live in a state where it is still illegal, though not heavily enforced for personal use in the city, as such people are perhaps a bit more courteous about where they partake. Going to the movies high is definitely still a thing, I have college memories of doing so with friends around the side of the IMAX before a nature documentary.

Where i'd draw the line, is certainly resulting behavior, or slipping tokes on vapes or one hitters inside the property.

[Chris Haller]

I live and work in a part of the US where recreational weed smoking is legal. People come in high. My staff come in high. My colleagues come in high.

I don't. But it just sort of is something I can't really dictate. I don't love it, but I don't really love any part of running a theater that isn't the booth these days. Go figure.

[Frank Cox]

My staff come in high. My colleagues come in high.

I don't have staff but I think this is definitely where you need to draw the line.

Would you accept your staff showing up to work drunk?

[Barry Floyd]

We get to deal with that at the drive-in too, and its not even legal in Tennessee. Local police won't do anything about it. I asked one of our police officers who stops by every night about it and he said, " The only way to determine the "legal weed" from the illegal weed was to send it out for testing, and our little town doesn't have the money or the time to deal with the testing." In our case, it seems there is a certain "ethnic demographic" that heavily partakes in the herbal supplements. When we played "Bad Boys Ride or Die" a year or so ago, Screen 2 smelled like weed for two weeks. We also have to deal with the occasional drunks, and of course "Methany" and her out of work baby daddy "Methaniel".

[Ryan Gallagher]

My staff come in high. My colleagues come in high.

Legal state or not, one can still have company policies that they would be in violation of… it’s the broader category of “under the influence”. How you might structure discipline is really up to you (if you are positioned to make such policies).

If this is a corporate chain I’m sure they have such rules, the question is does anyone care.

[Martin McCaffery]

Back when I was an usher in the mid-70s, showing Cheech and Chong movies was, umm, educational. The audience would get totally stoned in their cars, eventually wander up to the box-office and then forget why they were there and head back to the car for another toke.
The original days of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (how did autofill know to add the last three words of that title?) were also very, very dope enhanced.

So, sorry Frank, nothing new. You make policies, you get to enforce them.
Have fun.

[Frank Cox]

As I said in my first post, there's always been a bit of this stuff to deal with on relatively rare occasions (a couple of times a year), but it seems to be getting more common now.

And it really takes a lot of the fun out of doing what I do. I can deal with it every few months. But every few days, well.....

If it continues on the trajectory that's it on now, it might just push me to retire or something. But I really don't know what I would do if I wasn't doing this...

[Sean McKinnon]

these druggies

My... what stigmatizing language. Are the "druggies" causing a disturbance? You didn't mention that. Some people are on all different kinds of substances for medical reasons even ones that can be mis-used or lead to substance use disorders. Frankly, I don't drink and I personally find the smell of alcohol to be offensive but I would not consider turning a person away for having had a glass of wine or two at dinner unless they were drinking in the theatre (or snuck in outside alcohol as a lot of theatres sell alcohol now) or are causing some sort of disturbance or not following the rules.

I guess if they are not causing a disturbance why does what someone does in their personal life bother you so much you would consider leaving the business? That seems pretty extreme. Can you elaborate about what specific behavior is causing a problem?

And as others have pointed out in my experience movies that have appeal to a demographic that tends to use THC recreationally usually lead to a higher per-cap!

[Ryan Gallagher]

Imagine if it was truly legalized (not just medical/dispenseries etc and synthetic whack-a-mole)... there is a killing to be made at concessions for edibles. (Plus it doesn't stink).

I feel like prohibited states dealing with crazy legal synthetics arms race and there harms would just be better off letting people consume the real thing. Things were simpler back when THC was just a plant.

[Randy Stankey]

When I was a teenager, still living at the bar, guys would say, "Hey! Let's go out to my car. I got some new tapes. (for my car stereo) Let's go out and listen to them!"
That was code for, "Let's go smoke dope!"

My father was pretty "Anti-Pot." His attitude was like, "That shit is for n*****s!" (His words, not mine!) If he caught you with marijuana, he'd toss your ass out in a heartbeat and, if you tried to put up a fuss, you'd get one upside the head. On the other hand, he also didn't care what other people did when they weren't in his bar. He would, certainly, express his opinion but he was also of the mind, "If I didn't see it, it didn't happen."

That's, pretty much, my attitude, as well, only without the racist bullshit. People are people. People will do what people do. The last time I checked, it was still a free country. As the saying goes, "All men have the right to swing their fists to the length of their arms but that right stops at the tip of the next man's nose."

So, yeah... If somebody wants to go out to the car and "listen to tapes," that's okay with me but don't bring that stuff inside my bar... or theater.