PEDDLING SNAKE OIL: Sell feelings of safety as reality in “gun free” cinema

Does “feeling” secure translate into “being” secure?

Hardly.

That doesn’t stop some folks from blurring the line between the two to confuse people, including one movie theater owner in Woodridge, IL from selling snake-oil as effective medicine.

“We have 40-plus cameras throughout the perimeter of the building…  We have alarm systems throughout our building,” he told the local CBS station.

Forty cameras will make his guests safe?

Is that like the St. Louis Police Chief telling card-carrying good guys that they could leave their self-defense tools at home because St. Louis monitors a sophisticated network of anti-crime cameras in his city?  Here’s his quote from an April 16th story at KMOV.

“Leave it (guns) at home,” Dotson said. “Don’t give criminals more guns because we already know they are using them.”

He also says police will have access to 400 cameras throughout the city to catch criminals. Police will have access to this information from the new Real Time Crime Center.

How’s that 400-camera system and information from their Real Time Crime Center working out for them?   Here’s a headline from the July 20, 2015 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, three months after the chief’s earlier comment:

Murder count climbs past 100 in St. Louis after violent weekend leaves 7 dead

So imagine our skepticism at co-owner Michael Moore’s empty assurances trying to woo back customers nervous about he Lafayette, LA spree killer attack – at another “gun-free” theater.

Yes, the Hollywood Boulevard Cinema is posted “no guns”.

Woodridge, IL (CBS) — One local theater is stepping up security in the wake of the tragedy in Lafayette, La.

Michael Moore, co-owner of Hollywood Boulevard Cinema in Woodridge, tells CBS 2’s Suzanne Le Mignot he wants his customers to feel secure following this week’s shooting.

“We have 40-plus cameras throughout the perimeter of the building. We have a lot different things that we are doing. We have alarm systems throughout our building,” he says.

Security is both seen and unseen, he says. Backpacks are not allowed, Moore says.