Snake Shuts Theater Showing 'Anacondas'
Posted on: Friday, 1 October 2004, 06:00 CDT
HOUSTON (AP) - In a case of life imitating art, a Houston movie theater has shut down while workers hunt for an 8-foot snake spotted by a maintenance worker.
Among the movies playing at the 16-screen Tinseltown theater is the horror-thriller "Anacondas."
Terrell Falk, a spokeswoman for Cinemark USA Inc., said the worker saw a snake about a week ago that he described as thick as a man's arm slithering along a wall.
"As soon as he saw it, he left," she said. "I think everyone who was working left."
When theater owners heard of it, they closed the place and brought in snake experts.
"We have looked throughout the theater and we haven't found a snake yet," Ramon Cardenas, owner of Critter Control of Houston, a company that specializes in wildlife control, told the Houston Chronicle.
It's unclear if the animal escaped or remains inside. Based on the description provided by the janitor, the snake people believe it could be a Burmese python.
Cardenas said he set up temperature-controlled traps in hopes. Snakes prefer warm temperatures and are sensitive to vibrations, office manager Michelle Pustejovsky said, so the heat has been turned up in the building.
Houston animal control officers searched the place Wednesday and couldn't find any trace of it.
"Just because we didn't see one doesn't mean it's not there," Houston Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman Kathy Barton said.
Pustejovsky said it was unlikely a python would have just wandered in, and probably was brought in by someone or let loose nearby.
Falk said the theater was losing money by being closed, but said the safety of customers and employes is more important.
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