Incident in cinema - thoughts welcome

ndf9876

Morning all

I'm after some advice, thoughts and opinions here on a situation that occurred last night. I'll dive straight into the details :

My wife and I went to see a movie at a small cinema chain that serves alcohol - not just a few beers in a fridge, but the sort that has a proper, well-stocked bar. The showing was at 19:50 so not a late-night screening. The movie has an 18 rating so no children were present; the screen was fairly busy as the movie has only been on general release for around a week.

Anyway, pretty much everyone we could see in the cinema was drinking alcohol. No worries, had I not driven I probably would have enjoyed a beer. Several people though were clearly in a state I would judge to be quite intoxicated - including a chap sat in front of my wife, who managed (I have no idea how) to spill a glass of wine behind him, which gopped all over her shoes.

She remonstrated with the chap at the time (bear in mind we are in a cinema and the movie is about 90 minutes in) who was rude and dismissive, and who promptly left the screen, returning some 5 minutes later with more wine. No further spillage or incidents occurred, again to emphasise we were in a movie theatre full of folks wanting to watch what they'd paid to come and see, so loud voices and arguments were at the back of my mind.

My wife was very upset by this (her shoes now ruined by red wine stains) and the drinker was nowhere to be seen in the foyer. We did see him outside the building; I heard him joking to his mate about it so thought I would try and talk to him about what happened.

It was clear he didn't care, he found it hilarious and the only way this was going to end was in a brawl - which would solve nothing and certainly wouldn't magically return my wife's shoes back to their pre-red wine stained condition.

We left, pretty cheesed off, and went home.

So right now, my feeling is :

- The cinema ought not to have served a man who was clearly inebriated (I have seen enough wasted people in my 40 years to know what someone looks and acts like when they are smashed).
- The cinema has absolutely no control over a person's rudeness and actions; to expect anything else is in my opinion a little unreasonable.
- I probably ought to have left the screen at the time and ask for him to be ejected; I didn't because I didn't want the anticipated aggro (again, lots of folks enjoying movie with drinks, and I live in the town the cinema is located in and daresay some of the patrons would recognise me).
- The police would never care about something like this I believe, unless of course it came to violence \ assault which as I said, I was very keen to avoid.

I am minded to complain to the cinema and ask them for at least some sort of gesture towards the ruined shoes, on the grounds that they served a man who was clearly intoxicated. I know which row and seat he was sat in, if that makes any difference.

So - do you think I am being unreasonable in expecting the cinema to accept some responsibility for serving this chap?

Do you think it would be unreasonable to ask them for a financial contribution towards the cost of new shoes (they are ruined as far as I can tell) ?

Or do I need to just suck it up and accept that this was never going to end well?

davidmcn

It would be rather more convincing if you had complained at the time, but there's no reason why you can't try now. But bear in mind that perfectly sober people are capable of spilling drinks.

And no, the police won't be interested as (apart from anything else) it doesn't sound like any crime has been committed.

LadyDee

If you didn't complain at the time and failed to identify the person responsible to the management when the incident occurred, I can't see how they can possibly be expected to compensate your wife for the damage. After all, as far as they know, you and your wife could have gone to the pub afterwards and the drink was spilled there.

NCC-1701

Why didn't your wife visit the loo and at least attempt to clean the shoes?

ndf9876

To try and answer some of the points...

- The movie finished late (23:10 approx) so going to the pub was not an option. The point is taken however; the stain could have happened elsewhere (although I would suspect the evidence had to be cleaned up after the movie finished).
- Why didn't she go to the loo to clean them? I think partly because we were halfway through the movie which we'd paid to see, but also because there was a bit of an altercation (as you can imagine) between the parties involved. It probably didn't occur to her either; in the dark with only an iPhone torch it wasn't easy to see the extent of the spill.
- We couldn't identify the person responsible because we didn't see him until we left the building - at which point tempers were a bit frayed and we were tired.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I think the right course of action here was indeed to get up, miss the rest of the movie and complain with a view to having the chap and his friend ejected.

Manxman_in_exile

I'd complain to the cinema - nothing to lose.


I've virtually stopped going to the cinema because of this sort of hassle. A few years ago we went to see "Control" about Joy Division and Ian Curtis. Place was packed but a drunken couple insisted on talking loudly throughout the songs and spoiling it for everyone else. They eventually got thrown out.


Last time we went to see a screening of "The Ipcress File". The place was almost empty - great I thought. Then a family of three arrived, decided to sit right next to us, and talked throughout the film. We moved.


I prefer to watch a DVD - you get more, it's cheaper and you don't have to share it with idiots.

Aylesbury_Duck

It's worth a try but I doubt you'll get anywhere.

Unfortunately, there are seemingly more and more of these morons about nowadays. It used to be the occasional children you'd notice who were unable to behave in restaurants, cinemas, etc but now it seems that too many adults are unable to act reasonably and only think of themselves.

BoGoF

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

It's worth a try but I doubt you'll get anywhere.

Unfortunately, there are seemingly more and more of these morons about nowadays. It used to be the occasional children you'd notice who were unable to behave in restaurants, cinemas, etc but now it seems that too many adults are unable to act reasonably and only think of themselves.

I think the current crop of moronic 'adults' were the children you refer to. The ones where the parents just let them run riot without discipline.

Personally I would just chalk this down to experience and move on.

Aylesbury_Duck

BoGoF wrote: »

I think the current crop of moronic 'adults' were the children you refer to. The ones where the parents just let them run riot without discipline.

Personally I would just chalk this down to experience and move on.

You're probably right, I forget how quickly I've aged and become grumpy!

lincroft1710

ndf9876 wrote: »

So - do you think I am being unreasonable in expecting the cinema to accept some responsibility for serving this chap?

Do you think it would be unreasonable to ask them for a financial contribution towards the cost of new shoes (they are ruined as far as I can tell) ?

Or do I need to just suck it up and accept that this was never going to end well?

Yes, yes and yes.

You have no proof of your wife's shoes being damaged in the cinema. Even if you had complained at the time of the incident, it is doubtful that they would have accepted responsibility for the behaviour of one of their patrons.

izzy65

Send a complaint to the cinema, you have nothing to lose. My husband and I paid very good money to see a band in the SSE and somehow a bloke beside us had two half bottles of vodka, his drunken antics ruined the show, we complained , mainly because he should not of had glass bottles of alcohol there, and they offered two tickets to another show free.