
Bankrupt Chuck E. Cheese parent company wants to shred 7B tickets - uptown
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/bankruptcy-law/bankrupt-chuck-e-cheese-parent-wants-to-shred-7-billion-tickets
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shannifin
If I remember my childhood visits to Chuck E. Cheese well enough, I'm pretty
sure 7B tickets could redeem approximately 12 plastic frogs and an eraser.

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smitty1110
That’s a lot of cheating at ski-ball.

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plorg
This article would be way more interesting if they were treating 7B
outstanding tickets as debt and were seeking a deal with the ticketholders.

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phire
Knowing accountants, outstanding tickets are absolutely on the books as a
liability.

But it sounds like they were using accounting practices where that liability
was created when the tickets were manufactured, rather than when they were
issued to customers.

And shredding the tickets now has removed some of that liability from their
books.

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phasetransition
Kid me (or now my six year old) would love an intermodal full of Chuck E
Cheese tickets!

Adult me wonders how long they've been sneaking the ground up tickets into the
"pizza" dough...

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balls187
Had my sons birthday at Chuck E Cheese a few months before the pandemic.

Surprisingly the pizza wasn't too bad.

The actual party experience was really well done.

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in_cahoots
It must be location-specific. I went to my first one in decades this March,
and we couldn’t finish the pizza. It felt like a kid’s casino with all the
lights and sounds. The party was dystopian. It really soured a good childhood
memory.

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srtjstjsj
Many people like the casino design. That's why casinos use it, unhealthy as it
may be. Same for the pizza.

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dwg
$2.28 million to destroy contents of

65 shipping containers,

= $35,076 per container

I wonder where the bulk of this cost comes from. Transport? Legal fees (for
the petition)?

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thathndude
For real. I’ve got a fire pit in my backyard. I’ll knock out a container a day
for a couple months for 2.28m

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smnrchrds
That's most probably illegal to do. It certainly is where I live.

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gruez
Thanks to globalization, this is no longer an issue! All you have to do is
outsource it to somewhere where it _is_ legal to burn it. Comparative
advantage at work!

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sundvor
Isn't it fantastic to have zero ethics whatsoever?

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jjeaff
Of course not. It would be unethical to -not- do such a thing. You have a
fiduciary duty to shareholders!

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sundvor
Beautiful. Not sure if serious or not (80% certain it is sarcasm, but I could
be wrong), however it's a very real discussion that is not new:

[https://hbr.org/2009/01/no-profits-without-
ethics.html](https://hbr.org/2009/01/no-profits-without-ethics.html)

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jjeaff
Ya, sarcasm. Because I think if we are concerned with ethics, there are a lot
more factors to take into account than just shareholder profits.

~~~
sundvor
Very good, thanks. :-)

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agotterer
I hadn’t really considered how much environmental waste those tickets
produced. Would reusable coins be cheaper and better for the environment?

When casinos gave up coins in the slot machines I think they did themself a
disservice. The noise and excitement from dropping coins and the feeling of
having a bucket full of them was an important part of the experience. I wonder
if patrons of Chuck E. Cheese will care. I certainly enjoyed carrying around a
bucket of tickets when I was a kid. And enjoyed seeing what other people were
winning. E-points sounds less fun to me...

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kyleee
Agreed, but maybe the bias of liking the "waterfall of metal coins" is just
sentimentality. I'd like to see some studies comparing physical coins to
electronic rewards.

I get a sense that the vice industries (gambling, porn) are often a bit more
consevative with changes and/or data driven in their decisions, so I suspect
they have some interesting data on how people react to coin rewards vs.
electronic rewards. I'll bet their data says the various electronic versions
earn them more money

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dylan604
If you're a kid that has grown up with electronic devices your entire life,
e-rewards are what is normal to you. This is the target audience of Chuck E.
Cheese.

If you're an old fart that can remember living without electronic devices,
then you'll probably have a natural affinity to a more physical type of
reward. You might even be able to remember going outside to play.

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labster
I know the paper recycling industry is basically a myth but doesn’t anyone
want a mountain of clean paper to pulp?

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Scoundreller
I tear it apart and mix it with compost instead of using peat moss (which is
totally non-renewable).

I still wasn’t putting enough in and the pile smelled like a sewer until I
picked up a bag of shred from the street :)

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WMCRUN
I can think of at least 50 ways to use them that cost less than 2.8 million,
one of which is art.

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smaili
My inner child is cringing at the thought of all those tickets going to waste.

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kbrosnan
What did you think they did with the tickets after you redeemed them. They
were always destined for the landfill.

I worked at a Dave & Buster's as a tech. We were required by corporate to
destroy any redeemed tickets, usually by shredding them. The shredder would go
on the fritz because it was not designed to run 8hrs a day 7 days a week. When
it did they would bag and bleach the tickets. Eventually I heard that they had
outsourced the destruction to a mobile document shredding company.

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spicybright
Wha, bleach the tickets? That sounds like way more hassle then it's worth. A
strong lock on a dumpster should be enough. If someone really wanted to take
them then sure, they can have the ultra cheap Chinese made stuffed animals
that cost next to nothing for D&B.

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kbrosnan
I recall reports of people dumpster diving for the tickets. They were bagged
separate from the foodstuffs which made dumpster diving fairly effective. One
50 gallon trashbag full of tickets was probably enough to get some of the
higher end electronics stuff. That was not cheap. Though tickets were an
expensive way to buy electronics vs cash at an electronics store.

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ISL
Seems like they could sell entirely different tickets to a Guinness-Record-
caliber bonfire. (or sell them to a pellet-stove or recycling company).

Presumably the difficulty stems from the fact that outstanding tickets in the
wild can still be redeemed. There's got to be a cardboard/paper recycler that
would be interested in the containers and would be willing to find an
expedient way to invalidate them.

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dyeje
These tickets have literally no other possible use that they need to be
destroyed for 2.3 million dollars? Really?

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ebg13
Why don't they just throw them away? It's not like the tickets have face
value.

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jimbob45
Could they not hold an auction? Surely some other company could put them to
use.

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TylerE
Why?

Because they have the CEC name on them, and any company trying to use them in
now on the hook for every CEC ticket ever issued to potentially be redeemed.

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itsdrewmiller
This headline would not be nearly as intriguing if it included "Company" after
"Parent".

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irrational
I was so confused by the headline until I read the article. Was there really a
parent out there with 7 billion tickets? Why would they destroy them instead
of redeeming them?!

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PacketPaul
7 billion tickets. That must be good for the plastic spider, finger trap, and
a Frisbee. Well not a real Frisbee brand Frisbee. More a flying disk.

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edoceo
You're thinking of "flim-brim" / "flying hat"

(this joke is for the Murdoch Mysteries/Jonny Harris fans)

