| The Area Manager for Odeon will only say the cinema is experiencing “technical difficulties” and the cinema is unsure when it will reopen its doors to customers.
Bannatyne’s health club, which shares the same building and fire and alarm system as the cinema, also decided to shut its doors as a precaution – despite not knowing why the Odeon decided to close.
Hundreds of people were either enjoying a film or had just taken their seats at the 10-screen Douglasfield cinema for the main evening shows when the lights came up and they were asked to leave the building.
Management at the £5 million cinema offered customers no explanations other than undefined technical faults as they were asked to vacate the premises and a security guard was posted on the door of the cinema to turn customers away.
The Douglasfield cinema had originally hoped to open later today, but Marketing Manager Graham Duff said they would “definitely” not be reopening and were unsure when the cinema would be open for business again.
He said, “The cinema definitely won’t be open today.
“I cannot say the reasons for this.
“We are not entirely sure when the cinema will reopen.
“We will be assessing it on a day-by-day basis.
“All our customers at the cinema last night were given a full refund.”
The Odeon will be releasing an official statement about the closure – but in the meantime manager of Bannatyne’s health club remains in the dark.
Manager Brad Pascoe said, “We were contacted by the Odeon in the early evening last night to say that the cinema was closing, but they did not want to say why.
“Since we not only share the same building, but also share the fire and alarm systems, we took the decision to err on the side of safety and close the health club too.
“The Odeon contacted me this lunchtime and said they still could not give me an indication of the technical difficulties they are experiencing, but said they will be releasing an official statement later today.
“In the meantime I have to wait for this statement before making a decision to re-open Bannatyne’s.
“We had hoped to re-open at 1pm today, but now I don’t know when we will be re-opening.
“It’s quite frustrating.
“I am waiting for an explanation from them and word about whether it’s OK to reopen.
“We would like to apologise to customers affected by the closure, but we have done so in their best interests.
“We put the safety of our customers first at all times.”
Ian McDonald, area manager for the Odeon, said the closure was due to “technical difficulties”, but would not elaborate further.
He said, “We can confirm that the Odeon closed last night at 7pm due to technical difficulties.
“We apologises for any inconvenience caused. The technical difficulties are currently being investigated.” |
