North Texas man sues Cinemark claiming 24-ounce beer cups can't hold 24 ounces
North Texas man sues Cinemark claiming 24-ounce beer cups can't hold 24 ounces
A North Texas man has filed a class action lawsuit against Cinemark, claiming the movie theater chain is lying to customers about the size of its drinks.
A North Texas man has filed a class action lawsuit against Cinemark, claiming the movie theater chain is lying to customers about the size of its drinks.
Shane Waldrop claims that Cinemark's 24 ounce cups can only hold 22 ounces of liquid, according to the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
On Feb. 14, Waldrop went to the Cinemark in Grapevine and purchased the 20 ounce and 24 ounce draft beer.
He noticed the 24 ounce cup did not appear to be big enough to hold 4 more ounces of liquid.
Waldrop took the empty container home and measured how much it could hold, discovering it only held 22 ounces.
Waldrop and his legal team says the movie theater chain is taking part in "deceptive" and "otherwise improper" business practices that violate state and federal laws about misbranding.
"This is especially misleading because the 24 oz drink should provide a deal for consumers over the 20 oz drink’s price: $0.37 per ounce vs. $0.39 per ounce. But due to the actual volume of 22 oz available in the ‘24 oz’ drink, the price is $0.40 per ounce making the larger drink more expensive per ounce, which is not a deal at all," reads the lawsuit.
I totally approve of these types of lawsuits.
I do too, but I wonder what kind of mental problem that guy has to invest money in lawyer and court fees, plus tons of personal time, to get this going.
i wonder what kind of mental illness some already rich bigwig has to have to defraud even our fucking soda
I'm still fascinated that "calibrated" glasses are not more common. In Germany, you won't get any beer without any markings where the volume is indicated.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Füllstrich#/media/Datei%3AWeizenbier.jpg
The US is a wild west of suggestions masquerading as regulations. If your ledger doesn't have room for the decimals places needed to record the fine, it's not a fine.
Calibrated glasses are very on-brand for Germany.
They are and are actually enforced by the EU: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32004L0022
Some US states have some sort of department of weights and measures. I've contacted mine before about such issues and they take them very seriously, sending out an inspection team to test the claim. What they can do to enforce things depends on the state, though.
Because capitalism...
The free markets will figure it out!
In Canada a pint is a legal measurement of 20oz / 568ml
If you advertise beer on the menu as a pint, it must be at least 19.5oz excluding head(allowable margin of error)
What happens though is countless places advertise a pint, and then give you something like 16-18oz which is against the law.
It's gets harder tell what you're getting as well when they serve in non standard pint glasses, or glasses without a pint mark.
This is something that happens every year at the Oktoberfest in Munich. Legally, the "Maß" should be 1l, but the standards office regularly measure the contents way below that mark, even if one allows for a certain margin of error.
He did the math.
If this guy doesn't get a "we salute you" ad by the beer companies, there's no justice left in the world.
🎵 Mister every ounce of beer is precious man 🎵
If the beer gets wasted, God gets quite irate
This man is the champion of modern society and I support his righteous crusade
Godspeed.
Legit question: does the FDA do a weights and measures things for restaurants?
Having owned, partly owned, or at least been very friendly with restaurant and bar owners...
...no, no they do not. Maybe they do if you end up on some radar or something, or get reported? But in general day to day and inspections, no.
In the UK, and I suspect in other countries as well, you have to use the right cups and glasses for the right drinks. So for beer you will have to use the beer glass that the brewery provide. I don't think you can just go out and get any old cup from a shop and use that. You have to use the calibrated ones.
Apologies, I should have been more specific. I meant does some sort of regulation or team or anything involving weights and measures exist at all for food service? Or is the only thing the theaters did "wrong" in this case false advertising?
I understand enforcement for an FDA regulation/whatever may be lacking. I've worked in a restaurant and other food service related places before but I was young and pretty low level so I wasn't super tuned into the business side let alone laws/regulations outside of basic food handling.
Nope (afaik)
No one will care. They will pay whatever fine, and pay whatever members of this class, and then they will keep doing the same shit.
If they keep doing the same shit I’ll sue them again, citing their previous lawsuit and any injunctive relief ordered in the previous trial when presenting my case.
They'll just call it something different and hide the size in small print. Or they'll increase the price so that the large is still $.40 per oz since people don't usually do the math these days and just assume larger things are a better deal. A lot of times they aren't anymore because companies don't care as much about selling a lot as they do about profit on the sale due to there not being much competition with all the consolidation.
Texas, land of justice
What if 22oz of beer (volume) WEIGHED 24oz (mass)?
Wouldn't this mean that beer would need to be 8% more dense than water for this to work out? Quickly searching online, it seems like beer is more like 1% more dense than water, depending on the type of beer, so not sure this is possible.
According to the website below, searching for "beer", 22 oz weighs 23.281 oz. So it's close!
As a Brit, I find a lot of American units confusing but that makes my head hurt more than usual.
Yes! Do ISPs next!
I wonder if they used to have bigger cups, changed suppliers, and didn't bother to update the menus
That's actually my thought, though even if it was a mistake, it had to go through multiple people before the 22oz cup made it into this guys hand. I hope he wins
I really don’t think the term “piss beer” is that literal
That old thing where they stopped dispensing 24 oz of beer and some idiot decided not to buy 24 oz cups anymore to save more money.
I'm usually against frivolous cases like this over nothing, but if he actually did measure that it's impossible to hold 24 oz in a cup labeled that way, then he does have a good case. I think the case would be more on the supplier that provides the cups to Cinemark though, and less on the theater that's taking the word of the supplier.
This is only frivolous if you think of it as being about 2 ounces of beer. Its not. Its about hundreds of thousands of people paying for something that they did not recieve. When you add it all up its quite a lot of stolen money! Also its absolutely Cinemark's fault, even assuming they were given the wrong cups by the distributor (which is a bad assumption) its on Cinemark to make sure they are providing what they claim they are.
Not frivolous
I think the case would be more on the supplier that provides the cups to Cinemark though
That's a matter for Cinemark and their supplier to sort out (either through discussion or another lawsuit). This man had a contract with the vendor (Cinemark) which is why he's suing them.
He really needed those last 2 ounces of beer
If the amount I’m being priced for is that amount and you short me? Fuck yeah. We should never be ok with not getting what we paid for. There’s too much shrinkflation and deception.
Yeah I'm with you, 2oz is nice big drink, if they're saying it's 24oz it needs to be at least 24oz.
Do you really need the last 8% of the pay that you earned?
