The Alamo Drafthouse is often touted as the movie exhibitor that’s different – the one with better food, stricter movie-watching policies and the one whose praises have been sung over the years by many a U.S. cinephile.
Now an extensive new piece at The Pitch has comprehensively gone into a massive list of issues from employees who worked at one of the chain’s over forty locations – specifically one in Kansas City.
The piece includes allegations that employees were forced to go up a number of flights of stairs to deliver food, even when many were physically injured and/or experiencing a disability. Physical conditions were abhorrent as one employee claims every time it rained, the basement would flood with human excrement which would then apparently come up through the toilets in the lobby and flood it.
Employees also allegedly had to endure sexual harassment from the management team, verbal abuse in front of customers, and physical altercations between management and employees. Accusations lobbed at the management team about the enforcement of the ‘no talking’ policy alleges they specifically target audiences by skin color.
One employee alleges management would alter ticket sales documentation to better suit their needs – voiding hundreds of tickets at a time to show ticket sales were lagging. That accusation though was for events that took place back in 2004. Alamo Drafthouse has responded, sending to The Playlist an email sent by CEO Shelli Taylor to the staff of the company after hearing about the allegations.
The e-mail extensively goes into the issues with both an e-mail and hotline setup to report any misconduct. In the letter, Taylor says: “I wanted to take this opportunity to make it absolutely clear – there is no place for abuse or harassment of any kind at Alamo Drafthouse. To anyone victimized while they’ve worked for Alamo Drafthouse – I am very sorry, and I promise that things are going to change. People who violate our Code of Conduct and engage in this kind of behavior must and will be held accountable.”
The full original article about the incidents that happened is up at ThePitchKC.com while the full response from Alamo is at The Playlist.
