Am I allowed to bring my own food and drink into the cinema? Rules and rights revealed
CINEMAS are notoriously pricey - even before you've added in the cost of popcorn, slushies, hot dogs and huge vats of fizzy drinks to enjoy during the film.
It's a huge revenue spinner for them, so unsurprisingly a lot of cinemas aren't too happy with you taking in your own refreshments - but is it actually illegal?
Can I take my own food and drink in to the cinema?
From a business perspective, of course cinemas would prefer for people not to bring their own food and drink in.
Selling food creates profit for them, and they don't want their sales to be affected.
However, on the whole they will turn a blind eye to people sneaking in their own refreshments.
This is as long as there is no alcohol or hot food.
Why can't I take certain types of food and drink in to the cinema?
Cinema bosses don't like people taking hot food in to cinemas as they can be spilled on to the floor or seats, meaning customers' clothing could be stained by a rogue dollop of sauce or oil.
Like all establishments, legally cinemas are restricted in what alcohol they can serve - if any - so people taking in their own booze could put them in breach of their licence.
Furthermore, a drunk customer could disrupt other people's enjoyment of the film, or cause a mess that their staff would need to clean up.
A spokesperson from Cineworld summarised the reasons perfectly, telling the : “Cineworld have a strict no hot food or alcohol policy.
“We reserve the right to refuse customers entry into the screens with hot food or alcohol bought outside the premises.
"All our cinemas display the necessary signage, advising customers of this policy.
“As a food operator we offer a wide range of drinks and snacks to satisfy our customers but also protect our cinema furnishings and customers clothing.
“Not all movie-goers are considerate of others in their snack choices and we have needed to set clearer guidelines on what is appropriate.”
How much revenue do cinemas make from refreshments each year?
Cinemas buy their popcorn in bulk and then sell it at an increased price to customers.
The that when they asked the main chains - Odeon, Cineworld and Vue - what their mark up was they refused to answer.
They said: "So, we did some investigating of our own. Measuring the weight of popcorn in small, medium and large bags from these cinemas, we compared the prices to the cheapest bag we could find on the high street and calculated the average mark-up.
"We found that Cineworld’s small bag of popcorn had an eye-watering mark-up of 1500 per cent.
"Their large bag had the smallest mark-up of the three chains, although this was still an impressive 370 per cent."
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