No booze? Here’s why I figure Regal Warren theater owes me $12 and maybe owes you too
Regal Theatres owes me 12 bucks and owes a whole lot of other Wichita movie fans too.
At the very least, we’re owed an explanation and apology for having to pay for alcohol privileges we didn’t get.
Here’s the story:
Saturday was our 34th anniversary and my lovely wife, Kathy, and I decided to celebrate with a movie, followed by a nice dinner.
Kathy’s wanted to see “Ambulance” for several weeks, so I went online to buy us some tickets.
The film’s been out for a while and showings were pretty limited. The only place we could see it before dinner time was at the Regal Warren East.
Now, I can’t actually remember the last time I saw a movie at Warren East. We live about as far west as it’s possible to and still be in Wichita and on top of that, my office actually shares a parking lot with the Regal Warren Old Town.
I’m used to paying about $10 and change in Old Town, but the Regal website quoted me $16.53 for Warren East.
I figured the difference was probably some online service fee and decided to just pay at the box office when we got there.
At the box office, the price was still $16.53.
Turns out there’s an additional $6 cover charge because our movie was in the “21+” part of the theater, a handful of auditoriums sectioned off from the others. The earnest and helpful teenager selling tickets explained there’s an upcharge to get into that part of the building because you can buy alcoholic beverages there.
Now, I’m usually fundamentally opposed to paying someone for the privilege of buying a drink from them. But I figured hey, it’s a special occasion.
Imagine my surprise when after we passed through the gilded art-deco doors to the 21+ club, there was no alcohol.
Instead, a sign at the counter said: Sorry, we are unable to serve alcoholic beverages at this time.
So, we’re paying $12 extra — a 60% upcharge — and instead of getting the speakeasy we were promised, we wind up in the Temperance Society.
The auditorium was nice and the seats were comfortable, as they usually are at a Warren theater.
And “Ambulance” was excellent, that rare shoot-em-up chase picture that’s actually populated with fascinating characters.
So I was ready to write the whole $12 thing off as just the usual east-side weirdness.
But as we were walking out, I noticed large crowds walking in and I started adding it up at $6 extra per head.
In the interest of consumer protection, I made a mental note to follow up and find out what’s going on.
Turns out, Warren East’s liquor license is expired and has been since the 15th of this month.
Debbi Beavers, director of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, said the company has applied for renewal, which could take a few days if the application is complete, longer if it’s not.
I called the “media hotline” at Regal’s head office in Knoxville on Monday to find out why they let their license lapse and left a polite and detailed voicemail. I haven’t heard back.
I’m sensing a pattern here. Two weeks ago I wrote about the spurious charges the Wichita Wind Surge tacks onto baseball tickets at Riverfront Stadium and they didn’t want to talk about that either.
By the way, our anniversary dinner was fantastic.
We went to Mediterranean Grill, a nice east-sidey sort of place where I had chicken kebabs with grilled vegetables and fattoush salad. Kathy had lamb kebabs with pita and hummus.
It was delicious.
But somehow, I couldn’t help noticing that our meals actually cost less than our movie tickets.
This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 11:46 AM.
