BYOP: Bring Your Own Popcorn. Not just Maharashtra, all cinemas should let viewers carry food
Why should I have to suffer hunger pangs because the multiplex confiscated my food?
If you are the Buzzfeed brand of urban poor, or just generally like to be careful with money, you know that booking a movie is not an easy task. Challenges abound. Weekend evening prime shows you simply do not consider. Morning or afternoon shows are your best bet.
But then comes the question of whether they fall between meal timings. If you had breakfast at 9 am, a noon show is not the best idea, because you might feel hungry by the afternoon, and richer folks stuffing themselves with gourmet popcorn while you hope they don’t hear your grumbling stomach takes away from the movie experience, somewhat.
A very real concern, it does not get the attention it deserves. Except from the Maharashtra government. Follwing a nudge by the Bombay high court — which is hearing a PIL on the matter — the state MoS for food and civil supplies, Ravindra Chavan, announced that people would soon be allowed to carry their own food into cinema halls, and the government would not allow multiplexes to charge more than the MRP for packaged food.
The decision deserves a standing ovation, though what it faces right now is legal issues. The PIL is still sub-judice. Also, some experts, according to Times of India, have pointed out that the law the government is invoking to enforce this decision — the Maharashtra Cinemas (Regulation) Rules, 1966 — is actually silent about food being taken inside establishments.
However, why should the Maharashtra experiment not be replicated across the country? Why shouldn’t the audience be allowed to go BYOP — bring your own popcorn, or alu paratha, or sambar vada, or a packet of chips you would have to pay more than twice the price for inside?
The government regulating the price of food sold inside multiplexes is a more complicated issue. Cooked food is not a packaged product with a standard price, and the government can’t tell private establishments how much to sell their products for.
But surely, confiscating your humble banana, biscuit packet, a stray chewing-gum strip in the bag, is too much?
Admittedly, eating inside a cinema hall is not a basic need. But why should I have to suffer hunger pangs because the multiplex confiscated my food and is overcharging for what it sells?
Also, cost is not the only reason people don’t want to have multiplex food. Some are health conscious, some avoid outside food in general, some are on a diet. They don’t deserve to be sentenced to hunger for rejecting counter fare.
#WATCH Pune: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena(MNS) workers thrash a movie theatre manager during a protest over high prices of food items in the theatre. (28.6.18) (Note: Strong Language) pic.twitter.com/UEEBOYiuKz
— ANI (@ANI) June 29, 2018
The argument that people can eat before coming in is school-principalish. The urge to munch might come to a perfectly full belly. I deserve to decide how I satisfy that urge.
Mint has quoted a film exhibitor and distributor as saying that allowing people to carry in their own food could lead to “people possibly carrying arms inside food containers to creating a mess with oily food to hurting religious or dietary sentiments of those sitting around them.”
Creating a mess with oily food is a danger not just with poori bhujiya you pack from home, but the burger and fries you pay Rs 500 for. Touchy religious sentiments can again be offended even with multiplex-bought food. And malls anyway have metal detectors and other arrangements in place to check for arms being smuggled in. If all that stands between me and a possible cinema hall shootout is the lady rifling through my bag for a packet of slice cakes, malls need to urgently update their security systems.
One problem with BYOP would be that food and beverages are a major source of revenue for multiplexes — 25-26 per cent, for FY17 — and audience being allowed to bring their own food could mean ticket prices being raised.
However, multiplex food is generally costlier than the ticket itself, and the hike in ticket prices can’t be too drastic — a lot of people might then just choose to Netflix and chill.
Whether the more expensive tickets are a small price to pay for free will and healthier food is for the audience to decide.