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Author Topic: Moviegoer sprayed with Mace in dispute over cellphone Matt Fields Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 545 From: Ohio, United States Registered: Jun 2005 posted 11-12-2014 12:23 PM                     I've thought about a "phone valet" service where we would charge your phone for you during the movie then you pick it up afterward.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-12-2014 12:27 PM                     quote: Terry Monohan There may be a time in the future were each cinema will have to have a police type person with a gun in each auditorium to keep the calm. If that would be true then I can also imagine a time when the theater could get sued by the patron who was Maced for failure to keep the peace, thereby creating a dangerous situation where abusive individuals have free reign to assault others without fear of consequences.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 11-12-2014 04:34 PM                        That wouldn't absolve the sprayer from criminal responsibility, or even civil responsibility for that matter. If the victim of an incident like this was going to enlist a no win/no fee lawyer and go after compensation, my guess is that they would sue both the perpetrator and the venue. It's certainly a worry though, and it seems to me to be a recent thing. I was essentially out of the theater business (at least, I didn't work in it full time, though I was involved in some installing, one-off shows and that sort of stuff) between 2001 and earlier this year, and cannot remember any of this crap happening in the late '80s or '90s. Cellphones were just starting to become an issue in around 2000, so much so that in the middle of that year we started to include "Please turn your phone off" snipes in ad and trailer reels. But when I was in the biz between 1998 and 2001, I cannot remember a single, serious act of violence in an auditorium happening in any of my workplaces or being reported in the media. Now there seems to be one every few weeks, with cellphones being the immediate cause more often than not.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-12-2014 04:39 PM                     If a theater can be sued for not having a security guard... and some theaters already have been... they could also be sued for not having one inside the theater to prevent altercations over cell phones. That would be irrespective of the perpetrator being prosecuted criminally or civilly.  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 11-12-2014 04:45 PM                     Ah Ha, another opportunity for TSA.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-14-2014 07:44 AM                        Eyewitness account of the incident: Click Here  |  IP: Logged Lyle Romer Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1400 From: Davie, FL, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 11-14-2014 08:15 AM                     I really wish somebody would come up with an affordable faraday cage retrofit and that all new builds would be built with them. For staff communication, I'm sure some kind of secure wifi could be set up with access points in each auditorium. There must be a smart phone app that can create a walkie talkie over wifi. Pick up some old phones and you're good to go.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-14-2014 11:23 AM                     It is as simple as chicken wire. Just line the walls with chicken wire, make sure that all the sheets are electrically joined together and grounded to earth. Be sure that the ceiling is covered, too. It probably won't add very much to the cost of a new construction or a full scale remodel but it could be cumbersome to install in an existing theater without disrupting operation. I remember that there is a company that sells architectural soundproofing panels that have either foil or wire mesh embedded in them for just such a purpose. You just panel the walls with them and you're done. I'd have to break out some Google-Fu to remember the details. For employee communication from inside the theater, why not do it like the old days? Just put a phone or intercom on the wall. I am beginning to think that the idea of being in "constant communication" is not what it is cracked up to be and it is causing more problems than it claims to solve. Mainly, I think it increases chatter (decreases signal-to-noise ratio) in communication, thereby raising anxiety levels. I believe it is this increase in anxiety in the general population which is creating the culture of violent behavior like we are seeing in the case of the theater where the Mace was sprayed. I am considering the counter-idea that a full communications blackout, applied judiciously in certain areas such as theaters, would be of great benefit to society in general. Parallel thought: What if a company Faraday Caged one auditorium in the complex and advertised it as a "No Cell Phone Theater?" They could even charge an extra dollar for the privilege. I wonder if the idea would catch on.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-14-2014 12:47 PM                     Too many people have no sense of manners as well as no sense of when it is or isn't appropriate to do things like use a mobile phone or even dig at one's own ass crack. Last time I fueled up my truck I saw someone doing just that and making no attempt to hide it. So many people just respond to impulses without thinking. On the bright side, the nation's rate of violent crime is continuing to decline. 4% drop over last year. The media is very hesitant to report this, preferring everyone to cower in fear thinking there are murderers and child molesters everywhere. In addition to movie theaters, I think Faraday cages ought to be applied to parts of churches and better quality restaurants. I don't like hearing phone noise in a funeral or if I'm spending a good chunk of money on a dinner date at a fancy restaurant.  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 11-14-2014 01:00 PM                        There is a movie theatre in Ashburn, Virginia that was built with something that blocks cell phone signals in the building (legally). Here's the other problem: Games.. They like to play games on their little electronic devices. Typically it's a mom that takes her kids to a movie she isn't interested in seeing, while they watch the movie, she lights up her tablet and plays her game. When these individuals are asked to turn these devices off, they tend to flip out. These games do not usually need a cell signal or wireless internet. I've had a few seniors play their "candy crush" games in the auditoriums also. Very annoying..  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-14-2014 03:17 PM                     I think that having a cell phone creates a need to have it all the time, Every time it snows, my mother calls me ten times a day to make sure I'm okay. I'm almost 50 yrs. old, FFS! If there were no cell phones, would she be one tenth as worried? There are good reasons to have a cell phone but, more often than not, they only create anxiety. When people think that they NEED to have a cell phone, they'll become even MORE anxious when you try to tell them that they can't have it. Cell phones are basically making our whole society turn OCD. Same thing goes for television. When I tell people that I don't have a television and that I don't want one, I get crazy looks. A couple of weeks ago, my uncle who is 80 yrs. old started having shit fits because he was trying to sell something by eBay and the buyer didn't e-mail him back in less than five minutes. eBay policy give you three days. Doesn't it?  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 11-14-2014 04:54 PM                     Faraday cages of those sizes are rarely very effective, you'll be spending a lot of money not only on the actual implementation, but also on finding and fixing all kinds of leaks. Also, wrapping a whole theater in "tin foil" is one costly business. The merits are just limited and in the unlikely situation you actually did succeed in killing cellphone reception entirely, you might end up killing other signals which could be otherwise useful or even required by law (what about police and other emergency services?). Instead of throwing all kinds of expensive technical solutions at it, strict and clear policies and actual strict enforcement will most likely be much more effective.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-14-2014 11:48 PM                     Cell phone reception in the building where I work is crappy despite the nearest cell site being less than a quarter mile away. The building is constructed on dozens of metal vertical columns and the windows are all divided lights in metal grids. When you walk into the building your reception is cut in half. If the roof was all metal (it is made of glue-laminated wood beams) reception would probably be cut in half again. Cell phone reception in the projection booth at the Tom Ridge Center is almost completely dead. You would be lucky to get one bar on the signal meter. Once you step outside the booth, your signal goes up to almost half. If you walk out the back door and step ten feet away from the building, your signal meter will go up to normal levels. I agree that it probably not possible to create a 100% dead zone without spending a lot of money. I still think it would be possible to cut reception down to a point where people would just give up trying to call out after a minute or two.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 11-15-2014 12:40 AM                        quote: Bobby Henderson On the bright side, the nation's rate of violent crime is continuing to decline. 4% drop over last year. The media is very hesitant to report this, preferring everyone to cower in fear thinking there are murderers and child molesters everywhere. Murderers and child molesters have grabbed the public imagination since communications media began. Shortly before I left England I bought a book that is a compilation of accounts of public executions in York from the c16 until that charming form of wholesome family entertainment was phased out in the 1840s. These printed pamphlets were the Facebook of their day, complete with gruesome accounts of the crimes and personalities involved. But the quantity of murderers and child molesters has always been tiny as a proportion of the population as a whole: it's just that the public at large always have been and probably always will be fascinated by them (M is in my view probably the most insightful movie to explore this, but it's just one among hundreds if not thousands). What I think is more recent is the mass reporting and widespread discussion of minor to intermediate violent crime, of which this mace spray incident is a classic example. If this had happened 20 years ago and not at a high profile Hollywood festival, it would have been reported in the local paper and possibly exhibitors' trade magazines, and no-one beyond their readership would ever have known anything about it. News of this incident was spread mainly by specialist movie industry websites and social media, to which anyone has access. In short, I suspect that acts of aggression in movie theaters are probably not happening more often than in the past, or that cellphones specifically are to blame: rather, we're finding out about them more than we would have done in the past and, thanks to human nature's tendency to want to talk about things that are exciting and out of the ordinary (hence the huge number of books, movies etc. about murderers and child molesters), losing sight of the fact that less actual violent crime is happening. You can't get much of a film script about a gradually improving economy and other long-term factors causing a slight reduction in crime, can you? Even Michael Moore would struggle with that one!  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-15-2014 09:37 AM                        quote: I'm almost 50 yrs. old, FFS! No matter how old you are, you will always be her baby  |  IP: Logged

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