Coronavirus: Drive-in cinema tackles a wee issue – its customers are in England, but the toilets are in Wales
Written by News on 24/10/2020
Drive-in cinemas have become a popular way of seeing classic movies during the pandemic.
But one venue in Chester has had to make urgent changes after encountering a big problem: customers would have to break the law to go to the toilet.
Storyhouse’s Moonlight Drive event was plunged into chaos after organisers realised that the England-Wales border runs through the middle of Deva Stadium’s car park.
To make matters worse, the loos were on the Welsh side – meaning paying customers on the English side could be left in a wee spot of bother.
The company said it was in a race against time to tackle “toiletgate”, and initially planned to find an alternative venue to prevent the event from going down the pan.
Setting out the dilemma, Storyhouse’s chief executive Andrew Bentley said: “We are already having to refund our customers who live in Wales as cinema is part of their circuit breaker.
“However, customers who live in England are also to be banned from straying into the wrong bit of the car park to watch the film, and Flintshire Police say they will enforce at the event.
“You’d need scale a decent-sized fence to get further into Wales, and you don’t leave England to get to the stadium.
“We could try to squeeze the screen into the smaller English side of the car park, but the loos are still in Wales so our customers are going to be caught short, or just caught at the border.”
Unfortunately, Storyhouse wasn’t flush with alternative destinations for its drive-in cinema. Now, it has decided to stay at Deva Stadium… with a few changes so customer comfort remains its number one priority.
The company confirmed: “We will stay at Deva Stadium, but have reduced the capacity so we can comfortably fit all cars on the English side of the border and can manage entry and exit carefully. We will also be providing portaloos so customers can have a wee without breaking the law!”
A series of Halloween specials are going to be played at the drive-in cinema next week – including The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hocus Pocus and Beetlejuice.
(c) Sky News 2020: Coronavirus: Drive-in cinema tackles a wee issue – its customers are in England, but the toilets are in Wales
