Fri 4/29
Moviegoers are not known for being as rowdy as sports fans. That’s a good thing. Because the Cedar Lee Theatre is hosting $1 beer night on Friday.
It is doing so to remind patrons that while more and more movie houses are selling alcoholic beverages (along with all kinds of gourmet food items that make popcorn and Raisinets look positively old-fashioned), the Cedar Lee has been selling beer and wine since 1989 and believes it was the first theater in the country to offer alcoholic beverages. So just for one day you can get a 12oz Coors Light for only a dollar; other beverages are regular prices.
If you don’t know what the reference to sports fans is about, look up “Ten Cent Beer Night.” Older people will recall that night in June 1974 when the Cleveland Indians were forced to forfeit the game at Municipal Stadium after drunk fans pelted the field with items of all types, including parts of seats, then surged onto the field armed with knives, bottles and chairs and attacked the players.
“There is no question that beer played a part in the riot,” said American League president Lee MacPhail.
A ten-cent beer would go for about 50 cents today so apparently the Cedar Lee is taking no chances, even though it has a fairly refined crowd for its roster of independent, artsy and thoughtful films. It’s hard to imagine anyone rioting to such current offerings as Miles Ahead, a biopic of jazz great Miles Davis, or The First Monday in May, a documentary about the making of an exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum about the influence of Chinese design on Western fashion.
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118