“I Need To Check Your Bag”

A Montreal movie theatre has been ordered by a judge to pay a family $10,000 in damages after violating their privacy during a search for movie-pirating equipment.

As the media is reporting, the woman and her daughters, for some reason, wanted to see Shrek the Third at Cinemas Guzzo in 2007. Theatre staff, mistakenly thinking there was a hot market for Shrek the Third bootlegs, was searching people’s bags as they entered. While this woman and her kids did not have camcorders, they did have illegal candy, and were told to go back and lock the snacks in their vehicle.

However, the staff continued their search, and found … birth control pills. In one daughter’s bag. Mom did not know she was in the pill. A bad moment ensued. And the family eventually sued Cinemas Guzzo for $60K, and ended up, like I said, with 10 grand for violation of privacy.

The judge rules the theatre has to post signs warning customers that property searches are likely, and that staff also can’t reach into bags.

Okay, I’ve never liked this search-your-stuff policy. You see it in stores a lot here. One hardware chain in my old home town, which shall remain nameless, had a standing policy of searches for every customer. If you shopped there, the cashier would go through your bags, and even check your pockets if she wanted. No exceptions. It was pretty humiliating, and I was pretty sure, even as a kid, that it wasn’t quite legal.

When I was a young reporter, we put this to the test: I filled a camera bag with items sold in the store. I remember screwdrivers, a flashlight, a package of nails, other odds and ends (we photographed me with the items beforehand, in case false accusations were levied). I went into the store and bought something small, trash bags, I think. At the cash register, the cashier asked me to open my bag. I said I didn’t want to. She said she would have to call the police if I didn’t comply. For a moment, I considered letting her call the cops, but then I agreed, and she unzipped the camera bag. She took a quick glance inside, then zipped it shut and rung up my purchase.

“How do you know I didn’t steal that stuff?” I asked.

She shrugged. “We have to check.” In other words, she was going through the motions, and wasn’t going to risk trouble by confronting me over it. Had I been an actual thief, I would have walked away scott-free. But I wasn’t. I was a journalist, undercover. I left, and ended up with a pretty decent article that put a dent in that store’s practice after I quoted a few legal eagles who agreed that yes, it’s a privacy violation for a store clerk to search people at random.

There’s a need for searches. I won’t argue with that. A recent kerfuffle here ended in a big controversy after a high school principal heard rumours of a student selling drugs at a party off-campus, then searched that student’s possessions, found drugs, and expelled him. The kid’s mother sued the school board — a typical example of the blame game — and a secret hearing ended in the kid being reinstated. Was the principal right? Technically, no. But sometimes drastic measures have to be taken to protect kids.

A principal is in a position of power. A store cashier is not. Randomly searching shoppers is stupid. If a store suspects a theft has occurred — and I learned this in Loss Prevention Training when I was a retail salesman — call the police. The store can’t even use force to restrain a suspected thief. Call the cops. Let them do their job, under protection of law.

Now that we know Cinemas Guzzo is searching guests, what’s next? With people now suing fast-food places for making them fat, will McDonald’s have people with tape measures at the door, squeezing our bellies to gauge jiggle as we enter? Will car insurance salespeople check our DVD collections for The Fast and the Furious before assessing a quote? This is all very stupid.

Company VP Vince Guzzo said the theatre will comply, the fine will be paid, but the searches will continue. “And we’re not allowed to put our hands in your bag, which is totally understandable,” he told CTV. “I don’t want to put my hands in your bag. In fact, leave the bags in the car.”

(Note to assholes who break into cars: you might want to check around Cinemas Guzzo. No, I’m kidding! Don’t do that.)

Today’s Morons: The Tarpon Springs Police Department

This one is a bit tricky. First of all, I am not talking about the officers of the Tarpon Springs police. They were just doing their job. I’m talking about the department as a whole. Maybe it would be better if I just recapped things quickly:

Fake sign

In 2007, police in Tarpon Springs, Florida, were told that 22 “No Parking” signs in the community were fake, and that they had been installed by a developer who was sick of people parking around a neighbourhood restaurant called Jack Willie’s Tarpon Turtle. I am not making that up. That guy, Mike Bronson, also deserves an extra Moron award, but also gets a very rare Weather Station Balls Of Steel prize for the stunt.

The signs went up in 2006 and were discovered in 2007 when someone noticed that these signs looked a fair bit different from the town’s actual signs, were mounted on different types of posts, and lacked an official city sticker on the back. Bronson reportedly denied being responsible for the signs, but then admitted he’d done it. Again, let me reiterate: Balls Of Steel.

The Tarpon Springs police determined that something like 233 drivers had been ticketed for parking in the fake no-parking zone. And then … they did nothing about it. “We messed up,” acting Chief Robert Kochen told the St. Petersburg Times. “We did not look at this thing like we should have.”

The whole mess came to light recently when a municipal official issued a report on the controversy. “I’m glad Mr. Bronson admitted to the act and the Police Department has been very proactive in this matter,” Commissioner Peter Dalacos told the Times. “I still have concerns about what action we can take to, at a minimum, have Mr. Bronson reimburse those tickets that were paid.”

Glossed over is the fact that the police knew about this for two years, and did nothing about it. That’s shameful. Whatever happens, though, Bronson won’t be charged, which kind of stumps me … how is this not a crime?

The more I think about this, the more I realize there are plenty of morons at work here:

• The rowdy customers at the Turtle, who parked all over the place and ticked Bronson off …
• Bronson, who erected the fake signs …
• The drivers who parked illegally and were ticketed …
• The police officers who never questioned the sudden appearance of 22 new “No Parking” signs …
• The police officials who were notified of the problem in 2007 and did nothing …

Real sign

It’s a Florida Cornucopia of Moronity! I love it. Anyway, like Dalacos said, it may be up to Bronson to pay the fines — which were about $20 apiece — and the town is quashing any outstanding warrants for non-payment of the bogus tickets.

Because, I suppose, if a scofflaw parks in a no-parking zone that isn’t a no-parking zone, and gets a ticket from a cop who wasn’t paying attention, and the scofflaw refuses to pay the fine … I guess they deserve to walk away from it all.

I don’t think the police around here are as lenient (or as oblivious) as some of the folks in Tarpon Springs, so I’m pretty sure I would get in trouble if I installed speed bumps on the street outside my house. I’ve been tempted.

Or I could put up a sign of my own, lowering the speed limit to a crawl. My once-quiet road is now a shortcut to the new Wal-Mart, and I’m sick of all these people in rusting 1993 Ford Temps and crumbling pickup trucks roaring past my little house.

I’ll let you know how this turns out.

Today’s Morons: Colin and Jane Moyle

Mrs. Moyle, the Naughty Schoolmarm

When I was a kid, it was a big deal to find out a teacher’s first name. Nowadays, children know more about the professionals who educate them. Sometimes, they know a lot more.

Today’s morons are a married pair of teachers from Wales who are no longer welcome in their respective classrooms. It seems the Moyles made an amateur porn video … and posted it on the Internet. A parent spotted it, reported them, and now they’re at home, perhaps naked. Meanwhile, the video is making the rounds of their town, watched by students, parents and pervy Welshmen alike.

Really, Moyles, how stupid are you? You clearly didn’t read my Tips On Avoiding Public Shame. Would it make your mother cry? Don’t post it online. Could it make  you look stupid? Don’t post it online. Could it ruin you? Don’t post it online. Are you a teacher? Behave. I know some teachers, and they won’t even sign up for Facebook — they know the dangers of putting too much information out there.

Here’s a true story: a friend of mine who teaches high school had just finished his workout in his home gym, and was making muscle-man poses for the mirror, dressed only in those little spandex bodybuilder shorts (and he was not a bodybuilder) with Creed blasting on his stereo. He caught a flash of movement and realized two girls from his school were at his door, selling chocolates, and had been watching him for a few minutes. They were laughing. The next day, he tried something like “Oh, you saw my brother working out,” but they weren’t going for it. That was years ago, and the story still makes the rounds as each new crop of ninth graders files into his classroom.

That’s minor league compared to what the Moyles were up to. And these are people in their 40s — they should have known better. All teachers should. We’re hearing more and more stories about teachers involving themselves with students, and it’s sad. Despite the hee-hee factor of female teachers seducing teenaged boys, it’s still child abuse. It’s wrong. And while I am okay with consenting adults wanting to make pornographic videos of themselves, and I’m okay with them wanting to post them on the Internet, I am not okay with it if they are in a position of trust and have responsibility for children.

Today’s Moron: Supplemental

I would also like to call attention to the parent who reported the Moyles. How did that conversation go?

• “I would like to register a complaint; I saw teachers in a dirty movie on the Internet.”
• “And what prompted you to visit that website, sir?”
• “Uhhhhh … research … for a book …”
• “Aren’t you a shoe salesman?”
• “Uhh …”

That guy will have to get used to quiet little snickers whenever he turns up for parent-teacher interviews, I think.

I Know How Lost Will End

Through my network of Internet spies, Hollywood tipsters and also some guessing, I know how Lost will end next year. As you may know, season six will be the ABC series’ final year, wrapping up the previous five seasons’ worth of desert island mindfuckery. All our questions will be answered, apparently. These include:

• Why are everyone’s lives connected? They were, after all, strangers on a plane.
• Who were Adam and Eve?
• What’s going on with Walt?
• What year is this?
• Where was all the food coming from?
• If Ethan was born in 1977, why did he look 40 in 2004?
• How did Jack keep his stubble the same length for 100 days?

You know, the burning stuff. Inquiring minds want to know. But I can spoil it all for you now, if you want. Because I have the inside scoop, the dirt, on how the show will end. I was surprised; for years, I’ve been convinced the island is Atlantis, or perhaps the shut-down remnants of Fantasy Island. But I was wrong; it’s not that at all. Ready? Here we go:

In episode 17 of Season 6, the last episode of the show, several things will explode, and some characters will die. Jack will make three different Jackfaces, and Hurley will utter a whopping NINE “dudes.” We will see Claire again, but we won’t care. People who are starring on other shows won’t be there, and we will have no explanation as to why. Richard Alpert will toss off a one-liner: “Libby? Oh yeah, she was —” before an explosion. And then, in the final moment, we will return to the Staff station, the medical hatch where Ethan took Claire, and we will discover the true secret of the island:

It was being used to create the perfect human, a eugenically created superman, a being born of the best of six fathers — athletes, scientists, leaders, warriors — who will be raised on the tropical Pacific island, educated and trained to be the best humanity can be.

This opens the door for a sequel, of course. Wait, it’s already out:

Newspaper Headline FAIL

I’ve written newspaper headlines for money. Actually, I did it for a lot of years. And I have made some serious doozy mistakes in heads, one or two of which have required a correction. Maybe five, actually. Okay, nine.

None were as bad as these, which turned up this week at failblog.org, the fifth-funniest website on the Internet:

Or this new and instant classic, a key example of why you shouldn’t use text to fill space in Quark or InDesign templates:

This resembles an error I made once, early on; I composed a cutline for a photo while the photog was processing it (this is pre-digital), using XX to placehold the two people’s names until the photog could give me his notes (and the PMT). He did, and I added the names, but the version of the Quark page that went to production was the original. The photo ran the next day, starring XX and XX. I was embarrassed, but the people in the photo, more so.

This taught me a big lesson: don’t fuck up.

Headline-wise, I tended to lean toward tabloidy heads, big, bold declaratives, rather than more straighforward Man bites dog type of all-keyword jobs. This led to some interesting discussions with other editors over the years, and now I’m a blogger.

Writing headlines is a tricky science, and one I never quite mastered (which you know if you read this site regularly.) One guy who did get it right can be found here, in this great article.

Today’s Moron: Paris Hilton, “Actress”

I know she’s an easy target. And really, who am I to make fun of a beautiful woman who was born a billionaire and makes $25,000 a minute to show up at parties? Nice life if you can get it …

But Paris Hilton has long wanted to be an actress. This became evident in her first film, which was pretty low-budget and was shot in a hotel room. I’ve never seen that one. I did see that one where she was the friend of the ugly girl, and the nerd loved her, or something, but I don’t remember much of it. And I think she was in the remake of House of Wax, which offered yet another reason to skip the remake of House of Wax.

Now Paris wants to act again. And she wants to act in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

“I’ve always preferred doing reality shows to acting because I can just be myself, but he’s the director I’d do it for,” she said in an interview that’s being spread around the blogosphere like E at a Hollywood nightclub. “I want to be his next Bride like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill!”

Hmmm …. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that Paris told reporters the persona she portrayed on reality shows — dumb, stupid, clueless and dingbatty — was an “act?” And didn’t she hold that out as an example of her acting ability? Yeah, this is what she told People magazine: “For five seasons I was stuck doing this character. It was kind of hard always having to play that character when it’s not who I am.”

Now she says she was being herself, and she wants to act, maybe as a ninja … I can’t keep up.

Quentin Tarantino makes big, blasting films that are characterized by snappy, hip dialogue and stylized action. Paris is not capable of either of these things. Unless, of course, Quentin’s next flick is an edgy remake of Gilligan’s Island and he needs a Ginger.

Tarantino issued a terse “no comment.”