1 January 2008

Capitalists in Capitol Theatre

| Sands
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I went to the movies in Manuka yesterday to see No Country for Old Men. About half an hour into the movie I went downstairs to buy some water but they were closing up. The guy working in the candy bar said it wasn’t too late to buy something but that I’d need the exact change.

I asked how much the water was and he said “Really expensive, it’s $4.50”. I had a $20 note and $4.45 in coins. I asked if $4.45 was ok and he said “No, sorry I can’t give it to you for $4.45”. I laughed and asked him if he was serious and he said “yeah, sorry”.

What kind of greed is that where they’ll charge $10 for popped corn but deny a patron water because they’re 5c short! I was dumbfounded. Luckily the movie was brilliant so I didn’t stew on it…

[ED] On the other hand their tickets are only $8 which is for all sessions and all days, far better than paying $16.50 elsewhere.

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skid’s jest happiest when the ‘nats are on, but otherwise, he’s just plain contrary for being contrarary; in’t ye skid?

Has it? I’ve really enjoyed the post thanks! I think you’ve missed the point (I wont explain it). Either way, dude, why the aggro?!

This has all the markings of being another “Store X around town gave me a bad experience (pizzamen, meat pies, coffees, etc) and I intend to let everyone know” thread that has backfired on the poster. 😐

EXACTLY JD! (except nobody mention the $20 note anymore – he didn’t refuse to break it… I didn’t even offer to pay with it. It was only included for detail, but has just confused things)

I thought the exact same thing about a 5c piece lying around.

I guess I should add that I did a little feel sorry for him (later) if he was that scared about 5c.

Years ago I lived in Fairfield Co Connecticut (apparently the highest per capita income in the world) and I went to Walgreens to get some headache tabs or something, the price was something like $0.98, I discovered I had $0.97 in change or a $50 note. I asked the cashier if $0.97 would be OK but she said no, and when I pulled out the $50 note she seemed reluctant to change it! Anyway there were about half a dozen coiffured ladies in $3000 designer dresses behind me so I turned around and asked if anyone could let me have a penny so I didn’t have to break a $50 note for such a small purchase. Well, you’d swear Jesus had just appeared in the air. I’ll never forget the sight of these mega-rich cows trying their hardest to convince themselves I couldn’t be addressing them, by looking up, around, over, anywhere but at me! Over one American cent!!!

Locally I can understand the dude not wanting to break the $20 if he was balancing the till, but he could easily have taken the offered payment of $4.45 if he felt inclined. I suspect a quick scrounge around the bottom of the counter would have turned up a 5c piece to balance the books!

Nooo astrojax, Dendy show the ones I want to see (at $9 or something) and I actually think Hoyts Woden is more comfortable (chair wise). So I’ll still go to Manuka – coz it’s/I’m so cheap 😉

Astrojax – Dendy Premium ?

“And yes, I’ll still go there coz it’s so cheap.”

um, and prob’ly ’cause it’s where they show the films you want to see… 😉

(why doesn’t my local IGA show films so i can get cheap rice crackers and marinated kangaroo rolled roasts with the flick? eh, eh, eh?)

I guess that’s part of my gripe. When I was at uni and worked in a bar, management would be ok if my till was around $5 either side of balancing. My patrons had nothing to complain about and kept coming back.

It’s not like I’m working in the change box where every cent would count (or in their case ticket sales – hmm, not entirely sure that works). It’s just that it’s a customer service role so shouldn’t just be about dollars and cents.

The purchasing *experience* is just as important :-).

And yes, I’ll still go there coz it’s so cheap. But next time it wont be a drop-in and I wont be so damned hungover. I’m less grumpy today because it’s the first day of the year I’m NOT hungover!

Ah, VY haven’t times changed: now if you don’t change bin liners it’s called being enviromentally conscious! 🙂

Oh and Sands, while I agree that not letting 5c slide is a bit lame, if the guy’s boss rides him about stuff like that, he has no choice. I once worked for a guy back in uni days where, when we emptied the bins, we were expected to empty the bin liner, and put the same bin liner back in the bin!

Sepi, if the rest of you had it under control, there’d be no need for contractors.

haha, love it.

VY’s a contractor – they don’t have to understand the whole issue – just jump in, fixate on one part of it, and rave about their solution.

VY it seems the $20 is confusing you so let’s just leave it out of the equation. The point I’m making is that the dude wouldn’t give me a water because I was 5c short. And I thought that was pathetic. Simple as that.

The water wasn’t a major deal. I lived.

Macguyver would have used Diane’s 5c coin collection to build an aqueduct, therefore not having to walk at all to get his water…

el ......VNBerlinaV89:30 pm 02 Jan 08

VY – from my understanding the useless, lazy arseclown behind the counter refused to break the $20 note for Mr Sands.

‘kheads.

“What’s wrong with you?? “

What do you mean what’s wrong with me?? I’m not the one who is:
a) spending $4.50 for something I can get for free; or
b) sooking about having to break a $20 note.

Geez louise, you must have a tough life if this is your biggest problem!

i used to refuse to buy bottled water because i thought it was a wank but now i know, thanks to mr evil, it is provided by naked maidens – whoooole different story!

Yes, but because we all know that the bottled water comes from a fresh, clean mountain spring and each bottle is lovingly capped by nubile, naked maidens, it’s very hard to give it up. 😉

Once you have achieved supply in Canberra ($75 annual ongoing cost), each litre of water costs $0.000775 base value + $0.00055 (abstraction) for the first 100,000L.
($0.0013 or 0.13 cents per litre)

So the $0.05 alone that Sands started this thread about is the price of almost 40 litres of ACT water.

I think McGyver would be willing to walk quite a distance to get 40 litres of water, if it would have helped villagers and save the world from terrorists.

And to any bottled water types reading: $2 for any bottled water is equivalent to leaving a tap on full flow for several hours.

Bottled water is very bad for the environment. Those endless little plastic bottles are building up in landfills everywhere. And half the time the water is no better than tap water anyway.

Yeah, but even MacGuyver couldn’t turn a 5c coin into water.

Macguyver had a million tricks he could do with a 5cent coin. I recall one episode where he used one as a welder to build a battlement against an oncoming drugs cartel army, just in the nick of time too !

Learn to demand water in a glass\cup.

Licensed premises not allowing you water when asked (and not of the ‘sure, we sell it for $X/bottle’ allowing) is violating their Reponsible Service of Alcohol requirements.

Definitely a new perspective. Ok, I’ll try and avoid it. I don’t drink bottled water at home, but if you’re out and about there’s not much of a choice. I was particularly hung over and really needed it that day 🙂

and anyway, bottled water is something you should all boycott for its own sake – it is a bad move environmentally, as well as economically at cinema complexes…

for instance: http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=11068&channel=0

“According to the [earth policy] institute it would take less than a third of the annual amount spent by consumers on bottled water – some US$100 billion – to achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015.”

AD, yeah, they’re really useful for dropping down the buttcracks of fat morons who wear hipster jeans. 🙂

Absent Diane2:42 pm 02 Jan 08

people use 5 cent coins? I just collect them because I am sure the metal will be valuable in post-apocolyptic times.

“Bottled water is such a wank. I reckon I could bottle my own urine, then get Leyton Hewitt or Nicole Kidman to say how great it is, and then sit back and make a million dollars.”

Dead cert. Look at the success of Red Bull. I mean, have you tasted that stuff? UGH.

Quite a number of public vending machines won’t accept 5c coins either, which I think is criminal.

Go JD114, give them hell!

Not me JD, I encourage your stand! If I had the patience – and if I thought it would do any good – I’d do the same.

Hey Sands…

Therein lies a dilemma… with the refusal to take legal tender, I think it would be feasible to take the gov’t to court if you could prove you had the right money in a legal combination of coins.

As for the tolls in Sydney where they say they don’t take 5c pieces, I handed the guy 20c worth of 5c pieces in my toll last time through and it wasn’t a problem. I’m still waiting for a time when I’ve got some 5c pieces in my change mix for the Harbour Bridge, to see what will happen when I throw a legal combination of coins into the chute for payment. Having paid, if the light doesn’t go green I will simply wait until it does, even if it takes all day.

No doubt there will be some anal wankers on this site who will decry me for my stand, but someone has to stand up against the arrogance of governments and if it has to be me, well so be it.

I know – I hate 5c pieces! What annoys me most is that so many parking meters wont accept them – yet they’re legal tender. Ugh.

Bottled water is such a wank. I reckon I could bottle my own urine, then get Leyton Hewitt or Nicole Kidman to say how great it is, and then sit back and make a million dollars.

Anyway Sands, think of all those times you’ve dropped a 5c piece and never bothered to pick it up – it’s karma come back to haunt you. Happens to me all the time! 🙂

I guess it comes down to how much of a fuss you like to make. Depends on the place and the staff I suppose. I try and take my own water with me wherever I go so don’t run into too many problems. I do remember going to the U2 concert in Sydney and while we were allowed to bring our own water, we weren’t allowed to keep the lids on!?! We’d anticipated that from a message on their website, and brought some contraband extra lids, but I thought that was really weird.

Yeah, I’ve heard that it’s illegal, but plenty of clubs still wont give it to you. In a Melbourne club I went to (as part of an after conference party thing) all the cold water taps had been removed in the bathrooms! When I left I saw two police officers and – being completely wasted – told them about it and that I thought it was really irresponsible. They couldn’t have cared less. Or maybe I was just too drunk to have made any sense.

In places that typically sell bottled water, unless you’re at a closed-off festival event in the middle of nowhere, the keywords for combatting thirst are “Can I have a cup\glass of water?” instead of “I want a bottled water.”

Iirc it is one request nobody is allowed to deny you.

You should have asked for a cup of water instead. It’s illegal for anyone to refuse you that (even if they have bottled water to sell). I went to a small independent cinema up in QLD over the break and they didn’t have any water (or solo, or ice, or chips…) so I just asked for a cup of water – no problems! I do the same thing at Maccas too (when I have to go there…)

“… so pay the $4.50 already…”

What’s wrong with you?? He wouldn’t take the $20 (note that he said I needed the exact money) and wouldn’t let me off the 5c I needed to make up the money in coins!

And bighead, the dendy cards are excellent aren’t they. I actually do have one (I got my renewal letter last week). I just happened to be driving past Manuka and given the tickets are so cheap and I had 3 hours to kill, decided to pop in and see it there. But thanks for the suggestion.

Skidbladnir – what an idiotic statement. I needed a drink of water. Simple. Bit of lateral thinking people please!

So if you’re going to be thirsty and want water, bring your own and save $4.49.
Of if you must buy the Bottled Gullibility Water, don’t admit to it on Riotact, and save your credibility?

Mike Crowther11:47 am 02 Jan 08

BYO???

Awesome movie though.

… so pay the $4.50 already…

To be fair, that 5c would show up as missing at the end of the month, and someone’s balls would be broken.

Yes, managers will act like complete wankers over 5c

Felix the Cat7:47 pm 01 Jan 08

Or hire a DVD for $3 and get all the water you want for FREE from your kitchen sink tap.

$16.50 elsewhere? Get yourself a Club Dendy Card. Sure you lose a bit of money upfront. But I have well and truly made my money back at $9.50 each time.

You had to break a 20 to buy some overpriced water in a movie cinema in one the the priciest suburbs in town? Even the starving Africans are appalled.

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