Cinemas 'want to jam phones'
2005-04-29 14:26
Wellington - New Zealand cinema owners may use cellphone jamming technology to stop mid-movie calls, text messaging - and cellphone rage among patrons, they said on Friday.
The national Motion Pictures Exhibitors Association said it's studying the legality of using phone jammers because of the disruption from the phones during movie screenings.
Association spokesperson Duncan Mackenzie said the jammers could be used in the 200-member group's cinemas round the country.
Cellphones in cinemas were a "huge disruption" to moviegoers, Mackenzie said.
"Even texting creates so much light and it's unfair to expect that people should have to put up with it," he said.
The worst offenders he saw were middle aged women who answered their phones in cinemas and continued conversations, getting aggravated if asked to turn their cellphones off or leave, he said.
Mackenzie said "cellphone rage" between patrons sometimes turned nasty.
He had to defuse one incident when a man threatened to hit two foreign students sitting on opposite sides of the cinema who were texting each other.
While many felt teenagers were the worst offenders, Mackenzie said they were the most co-operative about turning phones off.
If jammers were introduced, people on call for emergencies could leave their cellphones or pagers at the reception desk, he said.
- AP