Tamarac movie theater sued for not hiring security to control unruly retirees
By Jon Burstein
Staff Writer
Posted February 23 2004
The signs on the box office window of the Tamarac Cinema 5 implored customers not to bang on the glass or make crude comments to employees about ticket prices.
The discount movie theater's manager has described its patrons as the worst she's ever dealt with, saying their filthy remarks leave employees in tears.
But the offending moviegoers aren't the teenagers typically found milling outside theaters across the country. They are senior citizens from the retirement communities surrounding the theater on McNab Road. That volatile combination of retirees and unruly behavior recently thrust the theater into the middle of a nationally televised manslaughter case.
Now the movie theater's owner and property manager find themselves locked in a lawsuit over whether they should be held responsible for, possibly, millions of dollars for retiree Irving Rosenberg's death. Rosenberg, 74, lapsed into a coma shortly after Seymour Schuss, 69, hit him, causing him to collapse and slam his head on the ground. Authorities allege the 7-inch skull fracture Rosenberg suffered killed him 16 days later on Nov. 24, 2002.
The Rosenberg family's attorney maintains the theater chose profit over safety by failing to have a guard or other security in place that night, despite some elderly patrons' previous poor behavior and other assorted problems around the theater.
The theater's negligence was so egregious that punitive damages are warranted, said Michael Sobel, the family's attorney.
"The fact is that elderly patrons do not equate to no crime, no violence," Sobel said. "That's a totally false premise. ... There have been many other incidents involving elderly people in the movie line, in the theater and in the plaza. This particular act of violence was foreseeable and could have been prevented through the most minimal efforts of the property owners."
The Rosenberg family also is suing Schuss, whose criminal case ended in a mistrial earlier this month after a Broward Circuit Court jury was unable to reach a verdict. Schuss' civil attorney, Brian Kopelowitz, declined to comment.
An attorney for the theater's owners and property manager calls the claims against his clients "a joke."
"To hold the property management company of the theater and owner of the property responsible for what Mr. Schuss did is ludicrous," said William McFarlane, an attorney for theater owner Tamarac Showplace LLC and property manager E.F. Hutton Realty. "What's even more ludicrous is to say that they should have done something to stop the incident that happened within three seconds."
McFarlane said the shopping center where the theater is located, Tamarac Marketplace, isn't legally required to have security guards in place. Tamarac Showplace LLC owns both the theater and the shopping center property.
"Look at the community standard and what other businesses in the area are doing," he said. "Are other businesses providing armed security guards? No. It's a sleepy retirement community in West Broward."
But Sobel argues the unruly behavior of elderly theater patrons is well documented. In the two years leading up to Rosenberg's death, Broward Sheriff's Office reports show:
A 64-year-old Sunrise man was accused of grabbing a retiree, Jerome Levy, 81, in a bear hug because he thought the older man was trying to cut into the movie line. Levy wasn't hurt in the May 2000 incident and no charges were filed.
Deputies had to escort a 72-year-old woman out of the theater in May 2001 after she refused to leave her seat following a movie.
An elderly woman fell as a crowd rushed to enter the theater on Jan. 1, 2000.
Tempers are further frayed, Sobel said, because the box office doesn't open until 6:30 p.m., giving customers just 30 minutes to get their tickets before the first movies begin.
Theater manager Barbara Sherwin said in a sworn statement that she had never witnessed a violent incident at the theater until Schuss attacked Rosenberg. But she said she has been taken aback by elderly patrons' rude behavior.
"Some of my girls are quite large on top, and they walk in and say, `Can we pinch them?'" Sherwin said. "If my girls are heavyset -- you know how the girls in the concession always go, `We have fresh popcorn, hot dogs.' And if one of them happens to be heavyset, [they say], `Well, that's why you look the way you do.' And I mean, these are just remarks I have never had anywhere."
Sobel said that in addition to the theater's problem with elderly patrons, there have been crimes reported at the shopping center, including a masked thief's failed attempt in July 2002 to rob the movie theater with a BB gun.
McFarlane said the theater doesn't bear any responsibility for Schuss' "violent criminal act that was grossly in disproportion to any actions by Mr. Rosenberg."
"Maybe at times [elderly patrons] have been rude, but there is a difference between making comments and criminally attacking someone to the point that they kill him," McFarlane said. "I don't know of any business establishment that doesn't encounter patrons who may be unhappy or make comments to staff."
He dismissed Sobel's argument that what time the box office opens has any effect on patrons' behavior.
"The theater will hold a movie if people are still in line," he said. "The allegation that you make people wait in line and it opens 30 minutes before, so what? ... You wait in line to see a bank teller. You wait in line at a restaurant. You wait in line."
Broward Circuit Court Judge Richard Eade will likely rule sometime in the next few months whether the Rosenberg family can seek punitive damages against the theater's owner and property manager. Schuss' retrial in the criminal case won't begin until April at the earliest.
Jon Burstein can be reached at jburstein@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4491.
