Drug users coming to the show

[Mike Blakesley]

there is a killing to be made at concessions for edibles. (Plus it doesn't stink).

When I first heard about edibles, I thought, great....now the stoners can get stoned, and the rest of us won't have to put up with that awful stench. But, despite edibles, smoking seems to be as popular as ever.

I asked a friend of mine who is a partaker, why that would be. He said it's because the effect hits you much faster when you smoke....almost immediately, vs. 15 or 20 minutes for edibles. So there's the reason.

Here, it's illegal to smoke weed within 30 feet of any public buildings. So that means you'd need to be out in the middle of the street, at least. But people are constantly standing right outside the bar next door to my theater, stinking up the clean Montana air. I hate it.

[John Thomas]

Way back in my first life, a wise AMC manager told me to treat the job of running the floor like it's the hospitality business. People pay us a little bit of money to take a little vacation from their lives. We don't call them customers. We call them guests.

Some of them bring kids, some are in wheelchairs, some are on a first date, and yes, some are stoned. Every single one of them came to your business to have a good time.

Just be caring and hospitable to all of them. If you're a little personable in the process you can learn about people from different walks of life in your local community. Frankly that's one of the most rewarding parts of working at a movie theatre.


I don't mean to tell you your place. It's your business after all. But I really recommend having an open mind and thinking about why we got into this business in the first place.

[Randy Stankey]

When it comes to the morals of smoking pot, we have to be realistic.

People can drink alcohol, legally, but most don't bat an eye. People can become alcoholics. They can get cirrhosis of the liver. They can drive drunk. They can crash their cars. They can get into fights, abuse their wives and beat their children. (You don't have to ask me how I know this.) People die from the consequences of drinking but society takes these things, mostly, in stride.

People can smoke cigarettes, legally, and it is generally accepted. They can get addicted to nicotine. They can get lung cancer and heart disease. Other people can get sick from second hand smoke. There is litter from cigarette buttes and wrappers. People die from the consequences of smoking but, again, society barely bats an eye.

When you get right down to the nitty gritty, why is it immoral to smoke a cigarette that gets you drunk?

For all we know, smoking pot is about as dangerous as smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol. Many people smoke cigarettes and drink beer at the same time!
We know how dangerous smoking is. We know how harmful drinking is. For all we actually know, smoking pot is about as harmful as smoking tobacco and drinking beer.

I am NOT saying that people should be allowed to smoke pot, just on those grounds but why is it that smoking cigarettes is okay and drinking alcohol is okay but smoking marijuana is not? When you boil it all down, they are ALL bad for you. It just doesn't make sense to say that it is okay to kill yourself smoking tobacco cigarettes but it isn't okay to kill yourself by smoking marijuana cigarettes.

If one thing is illegal, why aren't ALL of them illegal?

The answer is something I hinted at, before... RACISM!
Those "dirty Black people" smoke that "mary-joo-wanna!" Those "lazy Mexicans" grow that "wacky tobaky!"
We don't like those n*****s or those sp***s! We're going to make that stuff that they smoke illegal!

If I had my druthers, I'd make cigarettes and alcohol just as illegal as weed. I got put through college from the proceeds of alcohol and tobacco but, if I had to do it all over again, all of it would be against the law!

I knew people who were alcoholics. I have suffered the consequences of alcoholism...it killed my father! I am the one who took the phone call from the hospital when he died. It went something like this:

<ring>
"Hello?"
"Hello? Is this the Stankey residence?"
"Yes."
"Who am I speaking to?"
"Randy."
"Are you Richard Stankey's son?"
"Yes, I am."
"I am sorry to inform you that your father is dead." "Um... I'm sorry... Goodbye."
<click>
<dialtone>

It's been forty years since the old bastard kicked the bucket. It hurts just as badly, today, as it did three quarters of my life ago!

Maybe, if pot was legal but alcohol was against the law, my father would still be alive.

I don't know. That's just a rhetorical statement but I think you get my meaning.

[Sean McKinnon]

Randy, I am very sorry, loss and grief may get heal over time but never go away.

Way back in my first life, a wise AMC manager told me to treat the job of running the floor like it's the hospitality business. People pay us a little bit of money to take a little vacation from their lives. We don't call them customers. We call them guests.

Agreed 100%

I have seen what happens when you don't enforce ANY policies and let the place get overrun... Guests don't return.

I have also seen what happens when you have a manager who is overly concerned with finding reasons to throw people out and make the theatre a virtual police state... guests don't return.

I think we need to strike a balance in our guest relations, we need a safe place conducive to enjoying movies but we also need to remember that we are in show business and people come to have a good time and hopefully enjoy a good feature.

[Leo Enticknap]

I'm not sure that anti-marijuana prejudice is purely driven by racism. The stereotypical pot puffer that springs to my mind is the one in the South Park hippies episode...

...in other words, people of the same ethnicity as myself, and likely from a privileged enough background that they can spend their time getting high and playing awful 1970s-style folk music (which is the whole point of that South Park show).

But in any case, I agree with Sean. The bottom line is that if the smell and behaviors that come with this stuff is driving other customers away, or you're in a jurisdiction in which it is flat out illegal (in which case you risk incurring criminal liability yourself by allowing it), you have to do something about it.

[Randy Stankey]

Thanks, Sean!

It wasn't the death that causes so much grief. It was the circumstances but that's a story for another day.

I agree with you about why we do our jobs. We work so that other people don't have to. I do my job so that somebody else can sit down, enjoy a movie and some popcorn and forget about their troubles for two hours.

If you don't have that sentiment in your heart, you don't belong in the movie business.

Okay, Leo, it doesn't just have to be Blacks and/or Mexicans. It can be hippies, too.
Yeah! Those, damned, long-haired hippies, smoking that funny stuff and playing that weird music all the time!
Prejudice is prejudice whether it be racial or social.

That's part of the reason I don't cut my hair very often. I grew up being called a "long-haired creep." My brother and I were even forced to get army buzz cuts because my father decided that our hair was too long. When I was old enough to decide for myself, I stopped getting my hair cut except for once or twice a year.

It doesn't matter how long somebody's hair is, as long as they keep it clean. Right?
Just don't go 'round with dirty, greasy, smelly hair. Be half-way presentable when you go out in public and the length of your hair or the kinds of clothes you wear should be none of anybody's business but your own.

The same goes for what you smoke or drink. Mind your own business and let other people mind their own business.

[Frank Cox]

I do my job so that somebody else can sit down, enjoy a movie and some popcorn and forget about their troubles for two hours.

Yer damn tootin', toots!

My issue is that the druggies (my Oxford tells me that word has been in use since at least 1632 and means now what it meant then so it's a legitimate word so ) are harshing my mellow and I'm afraid they'll start driving away the other customers due to their smell, if nothing else.

Maybe I just don't know how to deal with these people. Until recently this sort of thing has never been an issue here at all and I don't know what has suddenly changed but something seems to have. Maybe it was just a bad couple of weeks here and things will get back to what passes for normal. It hasn't come up again for the past several days.

Show up here drunk, sit down, be quiet and don't bother anyone else. That's fine. If you cause problems I'll bounce you back out and the problem is solved.

Show up stinking to high heaven with your eyeballs rolling and barely able to stand... I don't really know how to respond to that and most of my other customers don't either.

I know there's a rough side to this town, more now than there used to be, sadly, but it rarely touches my world. And when it does, I am genuinely at a loss.

[Leo Enticknap]

We're drifting OT (and into politics) a little bit, but the main reason I like that South Park episode so much is that it is even handed in its satire and takes no prisoners: Cartman is a right-wing, authoritarian reactionary who delights in locking people up and gassing them, the hippies are inconsiderate narcissists who have no problem with their "music festival" making life miserable for everyone in the town that is not taking part in it (while claiming that it has a noble purpose that in reality doesn't exist), and the local authority figures are all incompetent hacks. Whether you lean to the left or the right, there is something in that show for you to laugh at. Same reason why The Last Supper is one of my favorite movies, and, IMHO, one of the most underrated and unjustly overlooked films from the '90s: neither end of the political spectrum is spared ridicule.

[Randy Stankey]

Intoxicated is intoxicated. The means by which a consenting adult becomes intoxicated makes little difference. Does it?

Public intoxication is still a summary offense in many localities. Isn't it? I don't think the law differentiates what classifies as intoxication by substance. Does it?

The same goes for DUI. (Driving Under Influence) It doesn't matter whether you smoke, drink, pop pills or shoot up. It's still DUI.

Somebody can walk into your theater, stinking of gin just as easily as they can smell of weed. It doesn't matter what people get loaded up on. Loaded-up is loaded-up. Stink is stink.

However, if somebody comes into your theater and you believe that, because of their state of intoxication or their odoriferous aura, you have the right to take action. If somebody is too loaded-up to stand in front of your box office and pay for their ticket, maybe they are too loaded-up to come inside. Maybe they would make other people who want to enjoy a movie in peace feel uncomfortable. If you're showing a Saturday afternoon kids' matinee, you don't want some drunk asshole stumbling around your lobby. Do you?

You have the right to keep the peace in your place of business... "For the Good of the Order," as some would say. Right?

BTW: Why don't you keep a box of breath mints behind the counter and, when some idiot comes in stinking to High Heaven, slide a roll of Certs across the counter?

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Way back in my first life, a wise AMC manager .......

Look, it's a real life example of a unicorn!! Wise and AMC is the textbook definition of an oxymoron.

Back on topic, I feel much as Randy does on this topic. Drunk is drunk, regardless of what got you there. As long as the odor or behavior is not causing issues with other guests, let them stay. Their money is just as green as anyone else's. (Same as the issues of gays being turned away from businesses "just because." Now I DO agree that an owner has that right, if it is in conflict with their personal beliefs...but it makes for a very poor business decision on the books. I have experienced that first hand, and not much to my surprise the business that pulled that card on me closed soon after, seems they had a LOT of issues, which is even dumber based on their location.)

Frank, I kinda disagree with your wife, you are starting to sound like a "Grumpy old man" (And to be fair, at 62 it's happening to me too), but again, if their odor or behavior is not offending or causing issues with other guests, leave them alone. You cannot ever control what others do on their own time, and as long as it is not causing detriment to your business, it's best to mind your own and not get worked up over their (questionable) choices. All you accomplish otherwise is making yourself miserable and to what end?

And to add to Randy's idea of breath mints, perhaps a sprayer of Unscented Fabreeze can be offered to those who reek of weed as an option?

[Randy Stankey]

Their money is just as green as anyone else's.

In business, the only color I care about is green!

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

Who you callin stupid, wanker?

[Marcel Birgelen]

What a lot of people don't seem to understand, despite the lore, is that weed isn't legal in the Netherlands. It has only long since been decriminalized in certain low quantities and the sale in certain so called "coffeeshops" has been tolerated for the last 50 or so years. Those weed shops operate on a temporary license and many of those weed shops are NOT allowed to sell to foreigners.

Also, in the surrounding countries, Belgium and Germany, even possessing small amounts can still get you in quite some trouble. And while the smell of weed may be intrinsically coupled to places like Amsterdam, it's not like blowing in public is simply tolerated, especially not outside the more touristy spots. As such, if you show up at a cinema, completely intoxicated, they actually should turn you down. Maybe, some 40 or so years ago, it used to be special to get a beer in a cinema, but with the advent of cinemas in the U.S. that call themselves Drafthouses, I guess that phenomenon is no longer anything unique either.

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.

Obviously you should check up your local laws and regulations, but usually, you should be allowed to have a "door policy" that allows you to select who enters and who not, as long as this policy isn't discriminating against a certain minority. It has been a few decades since I worked "the floor" but if I would see that somebody got a bit too high on his supply, I would kindly ask him or her to go return to the box office for a refund or come back once he/she was sober again.

[Randy Stankey]

Obviously you should check up your local laws and regulations, but usually, you should be allowed to have a "door policy" that allows you to select who enters and who not, as long as this policy isn't discriminating against a certain minority.

As I briefly mentioned, if a person can stand at the box office with a clear head and pay for a ticket without fumbling with their wallet or purse, they ought to be sober enough to come inside without creating a disturbance.

The box office is your first "check point." That's the time when a customer first appears at your theater. It's the first place where somebody can judge whether a person passes the "sniff test," so to speak. That's the time when, if necessary, a manager can tell the person, "Sir, I think it would be better if you went some place else to sober up for a while." The concession stand and the ticket podium are the second and third check points.

If somebody can get through three check points, find their way to a theater and sit down in a seat without stumbling and fumbling about, they OUGHT to be sober enough. (YMMV, of course.)

Further, an usher and/or floor manager is supposed to come into each theater to check on the movie and and check on customers at least once or twice per show.

In Pennsylvania, the "Visibly Intoxicated Person" laws extend to every business, even if they don't serve alcohol. Even if you aren't running a bar, a restaurant or a liquor store, you can still turn away drunks. The rationale is that an intoxicated person is more likely to have an accident or cause damage or create a disturbance which could place themselves or others in harms way.

Even a movie theater that doesn't sell alcohol has the right to turn away intoxicated customers, in Pennsylvania.

I'm willing to bet that other places have similar laws, too.