The Alamo Drafthouse, the Texas company that will be opening a new movie theater in the historic Metro Theater on Broadway and 99th Street next year, is famous for its strict no cellphone policy. In fact, the company created an advertisement consisting entirely of an angry voicemail left by one of its customers about the policy.
The customer who left the expletive-laden message says she was just using her cell phone to find her seat in a dark theater when she was kicked out by movie theater staff. The theater plays the recording before movies, and it’s been seen more than 2.5 million times on youtube. The company says:
“We do not tolerate people that talk or text in the theater. In fact, before every film, we have several warnings on screen to prevent such happenings. Occasionally, someone doesn’t follow the rules, and we do, in fact, kick their asses out of our theater. This video is an actual voicemail from a woman that was kicked out of one of our Austin theaters. Thanks, anonymous woman, for being awesome.”
People who commented on our original story have already vented about this issue, with some saying it’s too strict and others applauding the theater for finally standing up to boorish behavior.
Check the video out below by clicking on the link (a new window will open with the video), and then let us know what you think of the policy in our poll and in our comments.
[poll id=”11″]
Photo by majcher via flickr.
My vote was not being processed???
so here it is:
“Love it. It’s about time someone did this!
Love it !
Voted “Love it” even though I’m sure I’m running the risk of being labelled “old” by that other reader from the other story.
Kicking somebody out for using their cell phone to find their seat in a really dark theatre is absurd,it’s not like she was being rude and disrespectful by talking loudly on her phone,she was simply just trying to find her seat,if she had been talking loudly on her phone,then by all means kick her out,but for finding her seat with her phone’s flashlight,come on and have a heart,what do you expect her to do? sit in a dark theatre in a seat that she may not be comfortable sitting in. alot of cellphones have flashlights either built in or as a downloadble app.