Street gets a pass at the movie theater

A spokeswoman for Mayor John Street said the mayor did not try to get a movie theater ticket-taker in trouble for asking to search his bag.
Street attended a movie at the AMC Franklin Mills mall theater on Saturday, April 16.
Joseph Hood, a 35-year-old man with cerebral palsy, has worked at the theater for 13 years. Street was carrying a shoulder bag when he arrived with his wife and a plainclothes police officer.
"Sir, for security purposes, I need to check your bag," Hood asked Street, whom he did not recognize.
Street refused to have his bag checked. The plainclothes officer identified Street to Hood, then the mayor’s party walked into the theater.
Later that week, Street asked aide Niya Blackwell — granddaughter of the late U.S. Rep. Lucien Blackwell — to call AMC to ask about its search policies.
After AMC management learned of the flap, a theater manager told Hood that he had done the right thing, but asked him not to check bags anymore.
Joanne Horochiwsky, Hood’s mother, was angry that the mayor had a staffer call theater management to report the incident.
Horochiwsky spoke with mayoral spokeswoman Deborah Bolling, who said that the two agreed that Hood had overstepped his bounds in trying to do a good job.
Because they had spoken about the incident, Bolling said she was disappointed that Horochiwsky decided to write letters to local newspapers.
The letters said security at the theater has been strengthened since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that employees attend classes on safety. It is left to the discretion of the employees to check a customer’s bag.
Horochiwsky is demanding an apology from Street. She thinks the mayor should have agreed to the request to check the bag and commended her son for doing his job. She wonders whether the mayor picked on her son because he is disabled.
Bolling said Street did not know that Hood had cerebral palsy.
"The mayor was not rude to her son," she said.
Bolling added that Blackwell did not call the theater to get the employee in trouble.
"She called to inquire about what the policy was," she said.
Bolling said Street, 61, has never had himself or his bags searched when entering a theater. He also hasn’t been searched even when going to the White House, she added.
The mayoral spokeswoman wondered whether someone who doesn’t recognize the mayor should be in charge of checking patrons for security risks. ••