A heated confrontation between cinema staff and two women who had brought food for their children to the screening led to the police being called.
A video posted on TikTok captured the altercation at Cinema 3 in the New Zealand town of Pukekohe, near Auckland, on Tuesday.
In the video, children can be heard crying as they tell their mothers to leave for breaking the theater’s rules by bringing in outside food.
“Let’s call the police,” a staff member is heard saying in the darkened cinema as the film plays in the background.
A child is heard shouting: “I want my mommy.”
This leads one of the mothers to reprimand the theatre workers and refuse to leave.
“You have no right to tell a five-year-old that and make him cry,” a woman’s voice said.
“They’re not going to throw us out, we’re not dogs,” said a woman as she continued trying to calm the crying children.
Cinema staff called police after moviegoers were caught bringing their own snacks for their children.
The clip, which was posted on an account that later became private, was accompanied by an explanatory video.
“Yes, we bought snacks for the kids to eat,” the caption read.
“When they asked us to keep them, we agreed, but we are not going to stop the children from eating.”
A second video of the incident, which was deleted on Wednesday, showed the cinema’s operations manager, Robert Greig.
“We can’t really function as a business if we start letting people bring their own food and drinks,” he is heard saying.
An off-camera voice asks if a refund will be given “while we deal with the police.”
A police officer is also seen in the background.
Social media users were divided over the incident, with some saying cinema rules should be obeyed, while others said food had also been smuggled into screenings (file image)
Mr Greig told the New Zealand Herald that He was off-site on Tuesday when staff called him about an “unfolding incident” in which customers had brought in “a lot” of outside food.
“Drinks, snacks, hot food, whatever,” he said.
He said staff asked the group to either put the food away or vacate the theater and receive a refund, but the situation “escalated.”
Although Mr Greig said he could not recount exactly all the conversations between his staff and the group, and only had second-hand reports, his employees “felt unsafe”.
“Some comments were made to them that really upset them,” he said.
Following Mr Greig’s intervention, the group agreed to leave the theatre and sort things out in the foyer.
“By this time the police had already been called and arrived shortly afterwards,” Greig said.
“This is the first time we have had to call the police.”
A police spokesman told the New Zealand Herald they were contacted at around 4.45pm on Tuesday about two women refusing to leave the premises.
“Our staff attended and verbally assaulted the couple, who left without further incident,” the spokesman said.
The incident occurred at Cinema 3 in the New Zealand town of Pukekohe, near Auckland.
It is standard policy for New Zealand cinemas to prohibit the consumption of outside food during screenings.
Cinema 3 has five signs posted on its premises stating “no outside food or drink allowed.”
He defended the policy, considering it essential to maintaining the financial viability of cinema.
“If we don’t have these policies and we don’t enforce them, we might as well not operate as a business because there’s no way we would survive on ticket sales,” he said.
“We are getting to the point where we definitely cannot raise our prices.”
Opinions about the incident were divided on the Franklin Grapevine Community Facebook page.
Some called it a “waste of police resources” and said movie snacks were too expensive.
Others, however, argued that it was important to follow the rules.
Some admitted to sneaking food into movie theaters, and one boasted of eating “an entire cake.”