Deborah,

This sounds very sneekly but we have been know to but a light dinner or
snack in a retail shopping bag (Macy's Burdines, The Limited, Disney, etc.)
and sneek it into the movies. If your at the mall no one says any thing. It
allows my preteen daughter a little privacy. Plus we take fun stuff like
fruit roll-ups, my brownies and juice boxes.

I did have a problem with a water park that wouldn't allow me to bring in
sorbet and brownies to a birthday party my daughter was attending. I asked
to speck with the manager and calmly explained my daughters allergy and
they relented. But I will get ugly and take names and number of owners if I
need to. A cold sandwich shop based in Miami got one of my "nice" letters
after one of their managers was very rude and sloppy with my ingredient
related questions. I find it usually comes down to the quality of customer
service training companies invest in their front line employees.It greatly
effects the approach taken to assist special needs customers like most of
us. Cheesecake Factory (strang hay?)we have found to have the best
corporate food service culture. They have, in the 3 times we have visited
their 2 stores in our city, been VERY open to learning about our needs and
having the cheif personally assure us that they understand our special
needs. But then they have a corporate culture centered around customer
service:-)

Take care,

Helen

>Have any of you experienced problems trying to take your own snacks into
>a movie theatre?  How do you "sneak" them inside?  My daughter wants
>popcorn, like everyone else, so we made some at home to take.  I didn't
>even ask, just took it in, but was anticipating a confrontation.  No one
>noticed.  Some managers would understand; others won't.  I would like to
>say I wouldn't patronize a theatre that wouldn't allow me to provide
>safe snacks, but there are few theatres here.
>
>I was wondering if this effects anyone else.
>
>Deborah Garner