Thursday, September 13, 2007

Six Flags Finally Gets Priorities Straight

We’ve been assailed for months now about how Mark Shapiro and company are going to turn the Six Flags company around, and make it a safe and pleasant entertainment destination for families, children, and people of all ages. And nothing illustrated that more than an incident this week, where Great America employees ignored scores of line jumpers and bands of foul-mouthed teenagers to forcibly eject a patron who was smoking outside of a designated area.

“This is a great day, not only for Great America, but for the Six Flags chain as a whole.” said Brooke Gabbert, a public relations spokeswoman for the park. “This will send a strong message to anyone who mistakenly lights up in a non-designated area. We hate you with the fire of a thousand suns, and we will eject you from the park with no questions asked.”

Teri Melendez, the ejected patron in question, claims that she was never given the option to extinguish the cigarette or move to a designated smoking area. But according to Gabbert, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

“We have zero tolerance for these kinds of ‘mistakes’.” Gabbert said. “She’s lucky that that our crack team of employees didn’t break her legs or rough her up a bit on the way to the parking lot. I’d say she got off easy.”

Gabbert, along with the entire workforce of the Gurnee, Illinois park, was present at a medal ceremony for the two employees in question, identified only as “Jerry” and “Tim”. When ARN&R asked who was actually manning the park at this time, Gabbert told our reporter to “mind his business” and insinuated that a crushed Marlboro Light could “conveniently” appear near our feet at any time.

As expected, the forums at the Great America fan site SFGAMWorld came out in full support of the company in this sycophantic thread, where one poster boasts to have “been known to take cigarettes out of people's hands in line for rides and put them out on the ground”, and another states that Melendez “deserve(d) to die” for her hideous transgression.

--CMV