Boxoffice-November.2001

SPECIAL REPORT: Security Practices
SAFE AND SANE
How American Theatre Operators
Are Keeping Their Sites Secure
by Melissa Morrison
seemed like a normal summer
ItSunday afternoon at the Paradise
Cinema 7, located in a rural
Northern California town. About 250
patrons were watching matinees of
"Legally Blonde," "Jurassic Park III"
and other summer releaases.
But all was not perfect in Paradise.
An employee, while sweeping the
parking lot, had discovered a device
in a planter located about 60 feet
from the building. Using the broom
handle to part the greenery, he saw
that the object was a commercially
manufactured explosive commonly
used in the town of Paradise's mining
and timber industry. Its serial numbers
had been obscured, and a warning
on it read: DANGER.
At that point, the employee's
training and the theatre's security
procedures kicked into gear. The employee
immediately reported his discovery
to the manager, who called
the building opposite the parking lot,
according to the theatre's written
evacuation policy.
Experience had also taught the
Paradise's staff how to deal with less
obvious adjuncts to such an emergency.
For example, they knew to look
out for unaccompanied children,
making sure that the adolescents had
access to phones from which to call
their parents to come pick them up.
And the cinema's staff knew to
tell patrons, some of whom were
grumbling about missing the movie
they had paid to see, that their stubs
would act as free passes the next
time they used them.
"In an emergency situation, you
would think people would not be
concerned about what they paid to
get in, but they are," says Paradise
general manager Scott Lotter. "If
that slows the manager down from
getting to the next auditorium and
getting people out of the auditorium
safely, that's not efficient."
The sheriff's team eventually removed
the explosive and detonated it
in a remote area, so no one was injured
and no property was destroyed.
The
event highlights one of
the situations from which
theatre operators must be
prepared to protect their customers
and their staffs.
And, in a much more extreme way,
so do the events of September 11th,
when terrorists hijacked four com-
the police. The police arrived within
mercial jets and steered them toward
minutes, eventually followed by the county sheriff's explosive ordinance
four separate American targets. The
removal team.
disaster has resonated through all
Meanwhile, the assistant manager aspects of American life, not the
went to the projection room while the least of which is spurring custodians
manager entered each auditorium. of public gathering places to reevaluate
Working in concert, as the assistant
how to respond to emergencies
stopped each film, the manager made that formerly were imaginable only
an announcement "we have an on a movie screen.
emergency situation"—and calmly Cleveland Cinemas is one such circuit.
Speaking one week after the
directed patrons to exits on the side of
attacks, president Jonathan Forman
said his staff was moved to immediately
begin developing strategies for
situations beyond power outages and
patron heart attacks.
"We're very comfortable with what
we have in place but realized we need
to revisit it and add to what our plan
currently doesn't cover," he says.
"We have addressed so-called more
normal emergencies. Only now we
need to develop and train our managers
and staff in the event of something
more out of the ordinary."
Now that the September 1 1 disaster
has permanently altered Americans'
idea of public safety, theatre operators
are looking at the future of cinema
security. Forman, for one, hopes that
cinemas aren't required to become like
airports, with metal detectors at the
entrance and patron-profiling to identify
potential threats.
"I don't think theatres can afford
it, unless the government subsidizing
the airports wants to subsidize movie
theatres," he says.
For now, Cleveland Cinemas, like
many others, is responding by taking
another look at current safety policies.
Most theatres' safety strategies
have evolved as the times have demanded.
Many of those, such as the
Paradise's, used NATO's training
tape, "Safety and Security: Accident
and Incident." as a basis on which to
build. (For more information, go to
www.natoonline/trainingtapes.htm .)
Building codes also have helped to
define and evolve policies— for exam-
facilitating evacuations by requiring
ple,
aisle lighting and a minimum
space between seat rows.
Beyond these commonalities, however,
no uniform standard for creating
and updating safety strategies exists.
As the theatres surveyed for this article
show, strategies range from regular
staff drills to nearly nothing.
Mary Ann Grasso, NATO's vice
president, says that specific safety
policies vary according to a circuit's
size, its insurance and the jurisdiction
in which it is located. She recommends
that theatre owners contact their local
fire and police departments for advice.
"One size doesn't fit all," agrees Tim
Pitzer, a spokesman for the Arizonabased
Harkins chain. "You need to be
sensitive to local challenges."
In Arizona, for example, there's an
influx of winter visitors, which must
be taken into account.
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