The Galaxy Theater in Carson City has been having a mess of problems on Friday and Saturday nights with teenagers “running riot through the theaters, disrupting showings and sometimes intimidating other patrons.”
Indeed, the problem was costing them money, as many customers were demanding refunds. So the theater recently imposed a ban on kids under the age of 18 coming into the theater after 6 p.m. on weekends unless they were accompanied by a parent or guardian. A reasonable business decision.
But Carson teens had a cow over the ban. They complained that the ban wasn’t fair; that there isn’t anything else for them to do on weekend nights, especially since the bowling alleys have leagues at that time.
Welcome to the real world youngsters. Lesson #1: Life isn’t fair. Lesson #2: A few bad apples can spoil the whole barrel. And if the little hellions who infringed on the right of others to enjoy their trip to the movie theater hadn’t been such obnoxious buttheads in the first place, the weekend theater ban wouldn’t have been necessary at all. Lesson #3: Actions have consequences.
But how to explain the insane lesson that social studies teacher Mary Alice Murdock is teaching her students about this matter?
Miss Murdock helped the kids in her class pen a letter to the theater protesting the decision. And that’s a good thing. After all, the right to petition and kick up a stink is an American tradition dating back to our founding. But get a load of what else Miss Murdock is teaching these young minds full of mush:
“My opinion is that I’d like to see (the theater) hire people who can look after the children rather than keeping them out,” she’s quoted as telling the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Say, what?!!
Why in the world should a private business have to use its money to pay baby-sitters for somebody else’s ill-behaved children? Where in the world did Mary Alice Murdock get the idea that a movie theater was responsible for filling a parent’s responsibility to “look after the children”? And we wonder why kids are growing up thinking it’s the government’s job to solve all of their problems?
Of course, the theater was caught in a no-win spot here. On one hand, they had to bring order back to the chaos caused by a few jerks. On the other hand, they didn’t want to lose the money of well-behaved, responsible teens who otherwise wanted to go to the theater to…well, you know, watch a movie. What to do? What to do?
So the theater decided to begin offering special teen passes for teens whose parents signed a form assuming responsibility for their spawn’s behavior in the theater. As long as mom and dad…or mom or dad…or mom and mom…or dad and dad…sign the form, those teens are welcome to patronize the Galaxy Theater again on weekend nights as long as they behave. If they don’t, they lose their privilege.
Lesson #4 (pay attention Miss Murdock): With freedom comes responsibility. And Lesson #5: Private enterprise is far better and more efficient at solving market problems than government. Class dismissed.
Posted on March 7th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Carson City
A little word play on something in the column; “Why in the world should a private citizen have to use their money to pay baby-sitters for somebody else’s ill-behaved children?” Yeah, like the little hoodlums that breeders put in public schools?