SILVER SCREAM: KIDS TO PAY FULL FLICK FARE
May 20, 2008 -- Just in time for summer's throngs of pint-sized moviegoers come . . . higher ticket prices for kids.
Clearview Cinemas on First Avenue and 62nd Street last week stopped offering reduced-price tickets for children and seniors, charging $12 across the board - even for a matinee.
And several other theaters are also expected to raise children's ticket and concession prices to make up for their cost increases, The Post has learned.
"I feel like everywhere I go, I'm getting nickeled-and-dimed these days," said Jack Miller, 40, who took his 7-year-old son, Benjamin, to see "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" at the Clearview yesterday afternoon, only to find that a children's ticket had shot up $2.50.
"Everything is expensive," he griped.
Davina Kahlon, a 31-year-old nurse from Manhattan who saw "Narnia" with her son Jahan, 2, called the price jump "horrible.
"I don't think it's fair," she said. "It's bad enough we [adults] have to pay $12. Children will be children. He may fall asleep or start to cry, and I might have to leave early. It's not just."
Rita Richardson, 46, said she plans to boycott the theater.
"They charge more to go to the movies here than in Times Square," she said. "I won't be coming here anymore."
Making matters worse for the kiddies is the fact that a large tub of popcorn costs 50 cents more at the Clearview than it did last year - up to a whopping $6.50 - a concessionaire said.
A ticket seller in the box office said the admission-price increase started last week as a pilot program for theaters in the area.
The other three Clearview Cinemas in New York City are still offering discount tickets to kids and seniors.
Clearview Cinemas spokeswoman Beth Simpson said in a statement, "An evening at the movies is still the most affordable entertainment option outside of the home."
Richard Gil, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said the ticket-price increases are simply a way for theaters to recover losses from their own cost increases.
"We're definitely going to see faster increases in movie ticket prices than we are used to," he said.
One piece of the puzzle is the record high price of corn.
Popcorn, the oil it's cooked in, and corn-syrup-heavy sodas are all going up in price.
"On top of that, if you start adding on fuel costs, packaging costs and labor costs, you get a higher cost for popcorn," said Bill King of Ramsey King Securities in Chicago.
