This is not a great week to be a government employee, but one movie theater chain is trying to ease the pain.
AMC has announced that its theaters are offering free small popcorns to those employed by the government, regardless of whether a movie ticket is also purchased.
Instead, the individual needs to simply present a valid government or military-issued ID at a concession stand. If they’re particularly hungry, they can apply the discount offer to a larger size.
“There are hundreds of thousands of federal workers whose lives are being impacted,” AMC’s executive vice president of operations, John McDonald, said in a statement.
“While we can’t do anything to resolve gridlock in Washington, D.C., we can provide a few hours of entertainment and free popcorn while they wait to get back to work.”
The government shutdown went into effect on October 1 and has furloughed around 800,000 federal employees. One major aspect to this shutdown that remains unanswered is how long those workers will have to wait until they see their next paycheck.
AMC says in its statement that the gratis snackage “is good until common sense is restored in Washington, D.C., or, more likely, until the shutdown ends or we run out of free popcorn.”
Breeanna Hare | CNN