Theater, police clash over gulps in the dark

BOISE – Idaho State Police are less concerned about what goes bump in the night than who goes slurp in the dark when it comes to a downtown movie theater.

The ISP Alcohol Beverage Control has determined that owners of the Flicks movie theater are violating state law by selling beer and wine to moviegoers because minors could be drinking alcohol under cover of darkness.

Flicks managers were talking with state police for a possible compromise. If one cannot be reached, the case could end up in court, ISP Lt. Bob Clements told the Idaho Statesman.

Flicks is a movie house specializing in foreign, independent and select Hollywood movies. It’s also a full-service restaurant that has had a beer and wine license since 1984 and has been in compliance with liquor laws, owner Carole Skinner said Thursday.

“I guess the main thing for me is we don’t pose a problem for anyone,” Skinner said. “We are a real restaurant. People eat meals (on trays) in the theater. We have a license and we obey the law. The ‘dark’ thing is kind of silly. The law doesn’t say anything about how dark it is. There are plenty of dark restaurants around.”

Skinner said Flicks identified all of its theater areas as places where food, wine and beer are served when they filed for their latest beer and wine license, which was approved by the ISP’s Alcohol Beverage Control division.

Clements acknowledged that is true. But he said his department was short-staffed and missed it on the application.

The issue came up earlier this year when a Hailey movie theater in central Idaho applied for a license to sell beer and wine and was denied. Then ISP investigators discovered that the Flicks and two other theaters in the Wood River Valley of central Idaho already sold beer and wine.

Skinner pointed out that the Flicks is different from other theaters because it is a full-service restaurant and meets the requirement that 40 percent of sales have to come from food and nonalcoholic drinks.