Movie theatre chain AMC has apologized to a North Carolina civil rights leader after he was kicked out of a screening of The Color Purple for trying to use his own chair in the disabled section.

The Rev William Barber, a former president of the NAACP North Carolina chapter, who suffers from a form of arthritis known as ankylosing spondylitis and walks with two canes, said that he tried to use a special chair he brought to an AMC Cineplex in Greenville on Tuesday afternoon and was told by staff he couldn’t.

Barber, 60, later told CNN that he has a medical condition that makes it impossible to sit in a regular chair. Barber shared a video of the incident that showed a stool-type chair with a backrest and no arms. (Barber has written for the Guardian.)

  • ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    I’m surprised anyone working at a movie theater is being paid enough to care enough to ruin a disabled person’s day over this shit.

    • eric@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      You’re right that they aren’t paid enough to care, but despite that, there are always power hungry dipshits who entirely misinterpret the rules and take enforcement way too far.

  • Cosmoooooooo@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    That’s humiliating and dishearening to disabled people to have treatment like that. It really affects their lives for the worse. I hope he sues them into bankruptcy.

  • weasel5053@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    AMC sucks big donkey balls and literally any other theatre is better. The CEO knows his company sucks ass and can’t go around feigning surprise that one of his employees was shitty to a customer.

  • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    You’d think one of the very human human beings working for the theatre would go “fuck that, we can make it work” and help him.

    Idk, maybe that’s an “and then everyone clapped” moment.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Shouldn’t be any different from someone in a wheelchair, you sell him a ticket for one of the empty slots and let him figure out his own chair.

  • Wogi@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    AMC kicks out it’s one paying customer that day, repeatedly he did not purchase the more expensive uncomfortable recliner option with his ticket.

  • blackluster117@possumpat.io
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    11 months ago

    Fucking really? You see a guy walking with two canes who needs to sit in the disabled section, and you tell them no? Then you call the cops? Do people in wheelchairs get turned away from that location as well? Morons…