That's the question running through a Chicago Tribune story about visitors who have been given lifetime bans by Six Flags Great America, outside Chicago. The story focuses on Brian Gill, who was banned from the park after an employee caught him trying to sneak into the parking lot without paying (earning a season-long ban) then trying to sneak back in later in the day (violating the season ban, and earning him the lifetime one).
Let's get out of the way that Great America's $20 parking charge is ridiculous. Industry leader Disney charges $15 a day to park in a modern parking garage in urbanized Anaheim, where land use is much tighter than in sprawling Gurnee, Illinois. The parking fee is one way that Six Flags has been nickel-and-diming its customers to get back money after offering low up-front annual pass and day ticket prices.
But that doesn't give anyone the right to skip out of paying the fee. If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere. That's the fastest and best way to get Six Flags to change its ways. If Gill actually did try to sneak into the parking lot (in the story, he disputes Six Flags' version of what happened), then the park has every right to toss him from the premises and even to have him cited for attempted petty theft.
But banning him for life? The story notes that the park has banned people for other offenses, including assaulting park employees and sneaking into restricted areas where they could be hit by high-speed roller coaster trains. (A Six Flags visitor in Georgia was killed when he hopped a fence into a restricted area and was hit by the Batman coaster.)
I've got a couple of questions. First, how does a park enforce a lifetime ban? Walt Disney World, which requires a fingerprint screen to enter its theme parks, could do this pretty easily. But Six Flags, and other parks that don't do ID checks, wouldn't be able to stop someone from coming in the front gate and spending the day in the park anonymously. Maybe the park could flag that person's name if he or she tried to book a ticket online or used a credit card at a ticket booth, but that wouldn't stop him or her from coming in with someone else who paid for them. Essentially, the park's "lifetime ban" is just telling the person, "if we catch you doing something bad inside our park again, we're going to charge you with criminal trespass, on top of whatever else we catch you doing."
Personally, I think a stronger deterrent is to be aggressive with criminal charges. Prosecute those who get in fights inside the park, or put themselves and others at grave risk. Confiscate tickets and season passes, too. But unenforceable lifetime bans seem silly to me.
Are lifetime bans ever justified? If so, for what? I'd like to hear what you think, and I'd especially like to hear from current and past theme park employees.
....unless the guy had a really good disguise and yeah, you know I'd be doing that the very next day.
The scanners (even the new one-finger versions) do not take your fingerprint. They scan a few bones in your finger, do a mathematical equation, and come up with a # that represents you based on those readings. Your fingerprint is never kept, and there are people out there who will have the same # as you. This data is not kept permanently, either. So this would be a very ineffective way of keeping someone out of the park, at most it might alert them to look at you more deeply with facial recognition.
That said, as to the topic of bannings - private property, they can do whatever they wish. I can't imagine being such an idiot that I'd do something to get banned from a park, but if you do - well, them's the breaks. Even if it is not enforceable easily, I agree - it protects them from backlash should the person come back and do something again when they call the cops.
Overall, I agree - and I wish Disney would do MORE of this. I have seen some reprehensible behavior before at WDW - and if WDW wasn't so wishy-washy they'd make a lot more people happy even if the offender was not pleased at being removed after spending all that $ to come. When you see some anger-management failure dad in his 30's screaming and swearing at CM's over something stupid like a line for a character meet, and ruining the experience for the dozens of other guests in the area, instead of just letting them walk away they should be ejected, at least for the day.
Its like, lets say you shoplift something worth a few dollars at Kmart, and you are caught. Instead of dealing with prosecuting you, they intimidate you by telling you to never come back in the store or else they will prosecute you. You don't come back into that store for a few years until you look different and hopefully learn to never shoplift again. Of course this guy tried to enter the parking lot again, so I guess some people never learn. I'm assuming he tried to drive into the parking lot through an exit or passage without a toll booth. I'm assuming SFGA doesn't charge you to walk onto the parking lot to get to the park.
The fact that these cheaters tried to buck the system that you-and-I pay for is reprehensible. This makes them thieves. And, I have NO tolorance for thieves.
All Disney has to do is update their servers to store as many years as they need to. They can bundle their past months and years and have a program that checks the closed data so that if it does catch someone...they might get in the first time but that fingerprint goes on a special file that never closes.
It is sad that there are these kind of people trying to cheapen our world. But, there always will be...
Their little prank is not funny when you and I pay for it and we are the ones who lose in the end.
Who do you think loses? The honest person...a large part of price hikes is just not the economy. It is to cover the increasing loses most big chains are now facing.
The vendors they purchase their wares from still expect full payment whether it has been stolen or not.
Now if it takes that many candy bars to equal just one...imagine how much more they must work to sell to make up big ticket items.
Who do you think loses? The honest person...a large part of price hikes is just not the economy. It is to cover the increasing loses most big chains are now facing.
The vendors they purchase their wares from still expect full payment whether it has been stolen or not.
Now if it takes that many candy bars to equal just one...imagine how much more they must work to sell to make up big ticket items.
While I know I might anger the editor a bit, but I really believe that the Tribune did not give the entire story. I feel that there might have been an arguement, threatening of personelle, etc. I felt that perhaps the Tribune left some of that out for a good story. I think this way because if you look at the other people who were kicked out for life (in the table in the paper version of the story), the people out for life did downright illegal and criminal actions such as mugging, sexual abuse, and bringing weapons into the park.
Also, can we please stop saying that people are justified for doing things because SFGA is charging alot of money? I know that parking seems like alot, but most people are getting in the park for around $40. Disney is charging a the least $50.....if you get a 10 day pass. Is the quality between Disney and SFGA different, of course, but you are basically paying the same price on your credit card bill. When people are in trouble at SFGA, thats what excuse comes out.
There was about a month ago a discussion from Screamscape about crazy SFGA guests. With that lower price, you tend to get people who don't usually get into the other parks and usually don't know how to act in public. SFGA or any SF park is not going to change until the clintelle gets a bit better. I am also thinking that this issue might be much worse at other SF parks.
Oh and you do get kicked out for line jumping. I am sure TPIers would appreciate that :)
A bit of web searching turned up a photo of one of the scanners, the type where you place your entire hand, palm-down, on the scanning surface. This particular type of scanner is also widely used in airports, military bases, and other high-security areas.
Contrary to what some may believe, it does not read actual finger or palm-prints. It reads the physical geometry of your hand, and uses the data to create a 'match' number specific to said hand. The technology is very mature and reliable, having been in use since at least the late 80's. Here's a couple of links with more info on the technology itself.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/biometrics2.htm
http://www.google.com/search?q=Hand+geometry+readers&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=8x1&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=CzllTuCyOrLWiAKFq-ysCg&ved=0CHAQsAQ&biw=1053&bih=602
http://www.acisecurity.com/products/handkey.htm
I didn't know the tech had advanced enough to do the same trick with a single finger, but I certainly don't see why not.
Keep the peace(es).
That's just it. A season ban says its only temporary, but a lifetime ban means never return. They don't ever want him to return. The request is made clear. If they choose, they can prosecute for trespassing. They never did it the first time so it was an error on their part. It is quite strange that you said it was unenforceable when the guy was caught twice. This is a particularly strange guy. He will stand out from a crowd.
I also know of some banned castmembers. They really do have a harder time coming back to the parks because their information is held onto. I know some former employees who tried to sneak in before their ID was removed from the system and the results were not very good.
His buddy (riding next to him) and myself began to pleas with him to sit down. I didn't want to see him die, and I was afraid he would take out people in the cars behind him when he was ejected. Luckily, the ride operators were on the ball and stopped us halfway up the lift hill (right next to that cursed speaker with the repeating announcement unfortunately).
One of the operators climb the stairs up to us, yelled at the guy to sit down NOW, and the slammed his lap bar back into place. He the returned to his station, and in a few minutes our car began to continue its climb up the lift hill. As we near the peek of the hill, we could see police cars arriving in the parking lot below. Sure enough, after an uneventful right, our would be daredevil had some new friends from management and several members of the law enforcement community waiting to him at the station.
This is where the guy proved himself to be a true grade A professional fool. He started yelling at the cops and calling the ride operator a liar. They were not amused. They promptly removed him and his buddy from the park. I felt bad for his friend. He had done everything he could to try to talk this fool out of trying the stunt, and yet he was thrown out too.
Before I left, I went up to one of the management looking types and told them I would be happy to testify as to what I had seen if if it was needed. The guy told me he didn't think it would be necessary. He also said that he doubted that guy would ever be allowed in the park again. I cant say I blame them. If you endanger your life or someone else's life in a park, you deserve to be banned.
His buddy (riding next to him) and myself began to plead with him to sit down. I didn't want to see him die, and I was afraid he would take out people in the cars behind him as well when he was ejected. We couldn't convince the fool that Mr. Physics would soon be teaching him a deadly lesson regarding negative Gs. Luckily, the ride operators were on the ball and stopped us halfway up the lift hill (right next to that cursed speaker with the repeating announcement unfortunately).
One of the operators climbed the stairs up to us, yelled at the guy to sit down NOW, and then slammed his lap bar back into place. He then returned to his station, and in a few minutes our car began to continue its climb up the lift hill. As we neared the peak of the hill, we could see police cars arriving in the parking lot below. Sure enough, after an uneventful ride, our would be daredevil had some new friends from management and several members of the law enforcement community waiting to him at the station.
This is where the guy proved himself to be a true grade A professional fool. He started yelling at the cops and calling the ride operator a liar. They were not amused. They promptly removed him and his buddy from the park. I felt bad for his friend. He had done everything he could to try to talk this fool out of trying the stunt, and yet he was thrown out too.
Before I left, I went up to one of the management looking types and told them that I would be happy to testify as to what I had seen if it was needed. The guy told me he didn't think it would be necessary. He also said that he doubted that guy would ever be allowed in the park again. I cant say I blame them. If you endanger your life or someone else's life in a park, you deserve to be banned.
(Note: Sorry about the double post)
Any former or present castmember of "Jersey Shore" would be a good place to start when issuing lifetime bans from places.
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