Landmark Cinemas 24 Whitby — Attraction in Whitby

Where can I begin! On June 27th @ 8.55pm. It was one of those milestone moments when my 17-year-old son was celebrating his high school graduation as well as his birthday with our family visiting from across the globe.

Furthermore, it was a dream realized to witness my son finishing his high school journey, accomplishment earlier that day. Defying the statistics associated with black youth, especially with all the barriers he had to overcome.

In celebration of this special life changing moment, we collectively decided over dinner to end the day at Landmark, one of favorite haunts. The flick that received the highest number of votes was "Inside Out 2," so as a family of 8 strong, we waited until the 8.55pm showtime.

Subsequently, upon entry into the cinema, we situated ourselves by purchasing popcorn, candy, and drinks. So, you can imagine our surprise when the manager pulled up to while we were sittinging in our seats, We were flabbergasted to see the manager walking into the theatre, invading our space of mindfulness and readiness. Simply ask to see our cups, his words loaded with micro aggression, and accusatory tones. He didn't immediately provide an explanation but instead granted permission to follow him for an explanation.

Myself and the rest of the fam were lounging in the lazy chairs, and so my wife was delegated to accompany him. The issue was that our son was wrongly accused of not paying for his medium drink. The cashier accused him of paying for a medium cup, but instead, watching him take a larger cup. At first, the manager sided with the cashier, who was blatantly lying, and this was eventually proven when he verified with the security cameras, but that took a couple of interactions.

This whole incident was disturbing and laced with racism that was allowed to transpire because this black teenager was targeted and seen a suspect. Instead of asking for verification at the time of the incident and making sure the cashier was doing his job. Instead, our law-abiding and contributing black family were profiled and not given the benefit of the doubt.

Furthermore, because of his prejudice and biased attitude, he proceeded to hijack our celebratory experience for a couple of milliliters of soda without cause. Specifically, my wife, who was dealing with this matter, missed the first 20 minutes of the movie as a result of his unscrupulous actions. There were no excuses for these unfounded, unmerited, and racial injustice causing injury. It goes to show that you should never judge a person by the color of their skin, but only by the content of their character.

These events that transpired were totally unacceptable by the Landmark manager and fuelled by the lies of the cashier. I am imploring your organization to invest in diversity, equity, and inclusion training and workshops to deal with the ever changing diverse landscape. As long-time patrons of this establishment, we are seriously considering taking this...

As I prepared to write this review, I noticed a number of negative reviews. I cannot deny someone else's experiences, but to say that I disagree, is a major understatement.

I have been coming to this theatre since it was an AMC Theater, then became Empire Theatres and finally is now Landmark. One of the main reasons that I love this theatre is the longtime manager, Michael, Richards, who has consistently treated my family, as if we were very valued customers. Going back many years, when AMC went out of business in Ontario, Michael honoured all of my AMC gift cards, even beyond the extended expiry dates that the company had advertised. He has always being exceptionally kind and gracious, when trying to accommodate any requests that I have ever made known to him. This is my favourite theatre and the only Cinemas that comes close to it is the Scotiabank theatre downtown, but unfortunately, this theatre is way too far away.

The theatre has upgraded their seating and there are no other theatres that I know of that can compare to the huge reclining chairs that make you feel like you are at a VIP experience without the VIP price. The humungous IMAX theatre is still the best screening room that I know of to enjoy the epic movies that require this experience. For a small fee, which basically is the cost of the free ticket that you receive every month, you can become a member and the perks that you get for this pay for themself again and again. From the discounts on all movies, to the discounts on concessions, and finally to be able to fill up a large popcorn a second time for free is unheard of in any other theatre chain. The price of popcorn has gone wild, and that includes this theater, but to be able to get another large popcorn to share with your family is much easier to take. You can even the 2nd popcorn when you are leaving the theater, and share it with someone else back at home. They also have a special feature, called a shout out, where you can actually recognize somebody's birthday or other celebration, on the screen with a short movie clip of special photos that you choose. I did this for my daughters birthday, and it is something that I don't think she will ever forget, nor will we. What a great idea!

Finally, I love all movies, but I'm so happy that this theatre also includes a variety of movies from other cultures, and also movies that are faith-based for those who want to watch movies with Christian themes. Simply put, this is my favourite theater. I sincerely hope that they have continued success, because losing this theatre would only be truly appreciated it when it was gone. Thank you to Michael and all the staff for making this a special place. See you...

normally i have a decent to good experience here….not this time. my friend and i pre purchased our tickets online with the costco “movie lovers” coupon for 2 tickets and 2 medium drinks and 2 medium popcorns … girl at the ticket scanner didn’t tell us what screen or what way to go, i asked her if i can just scan the QR code at the snack counter to redeem our popcorn and drinks and she said yes. Went to the counter with our popcorns and drinks and some extra snacks and the girl at the counter spent about 20 mins trying to figure out how to redeem our free popcorns and drinks …. she told me it’s not working and stood there staring at me waiting for me to figure out a solution…as if we were just going to say ok we will pay for it…….we showed her the receipt and she grabbed my phone from my hands and continued to swipe between my photos of the receipt and barcode for the tickets. she continued to try and scan and enter in the numbers on the coupon and kept telling me it’s not working and she can’t redeem it …. while trying to scan my code, she then spilled my entire medium pop all over the counter and myself and shoes and floor and apologized right away but didn’t offer me any napkins or paper towel. she then asks me for my phone to scan yet again…as i’m standing there with pop dripping all over me and my shoes … then she grabs paper towel and proceeds to fiddle with the till and slowly wipe up the pop from the counter …. not from dripping on me or what was already staining my clothes and shoes …. i had to ASK for paper towel minutes later as she continued to stand there and try and type in numbers. she then told us we have to have the physical copy of the costco coupon so she can scan it … we then had my mom send photos of the rest of the coupon and it seemed to work?! she then proceeded to just stand behind the counter and we asked to get new popcorn and drinks since they were drenched. and then we still paid $19 for other snacks and almost missed the start of our movie. horrible experience and now i’m sitting in the theatre in wet sticky clothes and shoes. and where was management this whole time?? nobody came to help, the others at the counter stood around and didn’t help…. will not be coming back....