A movie theater patron was pepper-sprayed for being on his phone? I get it.

I don’t want to say it was inevitable, but I was not entirely surprised to learn that a Burbank movie patron was so annoyed by someone using a phone during a recent screening that he turned a can of pepper spray on the offender.

About 40 minutes into a recent showing of “The Uprising,” according to witness Joe Rodriguez who spoke to KTLA-TV and posted about the incident on social media, “I heard the hiss of aerosol spray a few rows behind me. Someone yelled out, ‘I just got pepper-sprayed.’”

Police arrested 34-year-old Matthew Ware of Los Angeles in the lobby of the AMC Burbank 16 and later charged him with misdemeanor battery. Three people were treated at a local hospital, police said. On the arrest log, Ware is identified as a security guard.

The incident touched a nerve among smartphone-weary movie-lovers.

I admit, when I first saw the headline, I chuckled. And no, I do not think it’s funny to be assaulted with a chemical agent, but I have come to abhor people who use their phones in movie theaters, and the alleged perpetrator did something many of us have probably fantasized about.

Online comments were predictably vicious.

“The hero cinema needs,” someone posted on the Instagram feed Save Your Cinema.

“He’s my Luigi Mangione,” posted another, referring to the young man who gunned down the chief executive of United Healthcare in cold blood nearly two years ago.

“I hope this inspires copycats,” wrote another.

I don’t.

But I do hope it leads to people putting their damn phones away at the movies. The “please turn off your phone” onscreen warnings seem to fall on deaf ears. A 2024 YouGov survey about movie theater etiquette found that 78% of its respondents would support banning the use of phones during movies. It didn’t ask specifically about Yondr pouches, which some Broadway theaters and concert venues use to lock away phones during events and minimize distractions, but I’d support any movie theater that used them.

I used to feel anxious about getting to the movie theater early enough to get a good seat. And then, miraculously, theaters made it possible to reserve your spot. Now, if you don’t feel like sitting through 30 minutes of previews or Nicole Kidman’s breathless ode to the cinema, you don’t have to.

These days, my theater anxiety centers on phones. More than once, I have asked someone to put their device away because even a soft glare from a dimmed screen is distracting from a couple seats away. By then, however, I’ve already spent my precious time debating whether I should say something, wondering if they’ll put the phone away, etc. I came to this place for the magic, dammit.

You might think younger people are the worst offenders, but that’s not the case.

“I wouldn’t say it’s one single group who’s on their phone non-stop,” said Ronnie Yount, the executive in charge of marketing and brand development for Phoenix Theatres, a movie house chain based in Michigan. “I’ve seen parents who couldn’t care less about the film they’re taking their child to see and they’ll just sit there and scroll through Facebook.”

I thought Yount, 26, would tell me horror stories about fights over phones, but he said it almost never gets to that point.

“A lot of times customers will come out and report that somebody’s on their phone,” Yount said. “Then we’ll just go in and have a nice conversation, a friendly reminder, and 99% of the time they put their phone away upon the first request.”

Listen, there is no respectful way to have your phone out in a theater. Even during previews, as became clear during a grotesque 2014 Florida murder case.

The victim, Chad Oulson, 43, a Gulf War veteran, and his wife were at a matinee screening of “Lone Survivor,” a Mark Wahlberg film about the war in Afghanistan.

During the previews, retired police captain and former SWAT commander Curtis Reeves, then 71, became upset that Oulson was texting in the theater (as it turned out, with his toddler’s babysitter).

Reeves had words with Oulson, then went to the lobby to complain. When he returned to his seat, the argument escalated.

After Oulson threw his popcorn at Reeves and charged him, Reeves drew a gun and shot Oulson in the chest. Ironically, Reeves himself had texted his son while seated in the theater just before the altercation.

Eight years and many court delays later, Reeves, who had invoked Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law, was acquitted. A jury found he acted in self-defense. “We have too much hostility in society,” Reeves said later. “We gotta get over that.”

Maybe we all just need to lighten up.

Years ago, I was sitting in a Marina del Rey theater, and just as the movie started, the annoying Nokia cellphone ring pierced the quiet.

From across the dark theater, a guy yelled, “Hey a--hole, it’s for you!”

A ripple of laughter spread across the room.

Makes me smile every time I think about it.

Bluesky: @rabcarian
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