STER KINEKOR IS NOT SAFE

STER KINEKOR ROSEBANK NOUVEAU IS NOT SAFE!

This post refers to the frightening and extremely unprofessional experience my friend and I went through at the Ster Kinekor cinema Nouveau in Rosebank.

I will briefly outline what happened: We arrived yesterday, the 16th of January 2019, to see our 5:30pm show (“Ben is Back”) which was held in cinema 7.

Firstly, when booking my ticket the Ster Kinekor system would not accept my vitality movie card. After several failed attempts of trying to enter the movie card number I booked a normal ticket as there was no manager around to assist in resolving the issue.

Then fifteen minutes into the movie the cinema lights were still not turned off, and so the lady sitting at the end of the row got up and left the cinema to inform management of this issue. Ten minutes later she returned and seemed extremely frustrated, telling us that no management or staff was around to help and that it took forever to even find someone to turn the lights off. Eventually the lights went off and we could see the screen properly.

Around fifteen minutes after the lights went off, my friend and I noticed that we could barely hear the movie as the volume was far too low. Moreover, we could hear the movie sounds coming from the cinema next door. In fact, the cinema next door was playing “A Star is Born” and we could clearly hear the music from the film in our cinema. Due to this bother I told my friend I was going to go find management to tell them to please increase the volume so we could hear our movie better.

As I got up and started walking out the row (we were sitting close to the edge at seats 9 and 10) I nearly stood on a man who suddenly jumped up in front of me. He was crouched over and hiding right under our seats! Startled and scared at this man who appeared in front of me out of nowhere, I asked what he was doing and he exclaimed “just looking for something I lost”. He then proceeded to run for his life out the cinema at a rapid pace. It was clear to us that he was trying to rob us/take our bags which were on the seat next to us. It was entirely impossible he even dropped something by us since he was not sitting where we sat and it was obvious he was trying to hide under the seat.

I was very panicked at this point and went running straight to a lady standing at the entrance of the cinema. I told her what had just happened to us and requested security, but was told “sorry the cinema has no security”. She then went to go make sure the side door/fire escape by cinema 7 (which had entrance to the mall) was closed and locked. The staff members in general showed no sense of urgency nor was anyone around to help us!

My friend and I, as well as the two other people sitting in the cinema all left the cinema after this incident. We didn’t feel safe enough to continue sitting there. It was an extremely unpleasant and unprofessional experience all round.

20 minutes later once the manger appeared we informed him of what had happened and that we wanted to leave the cinema and get our money back, but he refused to give us our money back and so we got a gift voucher for another movie instead. We were not even offered anything in addition to that as compensation for the stress and inconvenience caused, which we found to be disgusting and showed a lack of customer service.

I am a regular customer at Ster Kinekor and see a movie at your theatres every two weeks without fail. I am appalled at the lack of urgency the matter was treated with and the bad service received. I don’t see why I should ever return to your cinema’s. Most importantly, I cannot understand how and why there were no security guards present at your movie theaters. We shudder to think what could have happened if the man was more aggressive or if I didn’t get up at all - our bags would have been gone. My friend and I are traumatised by having someone hiding underneath our seats and almost robbing us and cannot fathom why NO SECURITY WAS AROUND TO HELP.

We didn’t want to take this matter to social media but feel like we have an obligation to inform everyone about how unsafe the cinema’s are, and how bad the overall experience and service was. I urge whomever reading this to please pass this on and for your own safety not go to Ster Kinekor!

Furthermore, I have done some research and found that there have been other attempted ******ies/ ******ies reported at Ster Kinekor dating back to 2015! 4 years later and still there is no security present at Ster Kinekor and they have not upped their game in dealing with such incidents and putting proper procedures in place. Staff is not properly equipped to deal with such events and respond to very real threats.

Ster Kinekor what are you going to do about this?! This seems to be a frequent event and I demand some sort of resolution not for my self, but for the safety of others trying to enjoy a movie!