The suit was brought by a law school student in Shanghai after she was told by park security to either throw away the snacks she had
brought in her backpack or finish them. In order to get into the park,
she discarded the snacks, which were worth 46.3 yuan (S$9.60), following
a series of failed attempts to resist, including oral disputes with
security and phone calls to the police and to the municipal's official
complaint hotlines, according to news portal thePaper.cn.The student,
surnamed Wang, a junior from East China University of Political Science
and Law, made the trip to the park in late January and brought the case
to the People's Court of Pudong New Area, where the theme park is
located.
She called for the park's ban to be overturned and for the park to compensate her loss. The case was heard on April 23 and the verdict is
pending.
Since being disclosed by a number of Chinese media over the weekend, the case has sparked heated discussions on social media about whether
it is reasonable for the world's second largest Walt Disney park to deny
visitors the right to bring their own food. Some argue that the food
and beverages supplied within the park are overpriced, making the
motivation behind the policy appear dubious.
In an online poll by local media shobserver.com, 40 per cent of the respondents said they don't mind such a policy as long as there is no
price difference between the food sold in and outside of the park. The
poll attracted more than 3,000 people in less than six hours.Shanghai
Disneyland has banned outside food, alcohol and nonalcoholic beverages
over 600 milliliters inside its park since November 2017, more than a
year after its opening.
This is not the first time Shanghai Disneyland got sued over the policy. In June 2018, a lawyer from Suzhou, Jiangsu province, tried to
take the theme park to court by accusing it of violating consumer
rights. But the court turned down his appeal.
Wang, together with three of her classmates and a mentor, approached the case as a "service contract dispute", calling the ban an unfair
term in standard-form consumer contracts. She also cited a statement by
the Supreme Court, which said the policy of no outside food and
beverages in the catering industry is a "bullying term", according to
thePaper.cn.
In one of its recent school journals, Wang and her three classmates, who are all majoring in international law, said it's the nature of
legal practitioners to find fault with the status quo.In 2014, a college
student in Yantai, Shandong province, won a lawsuit against a local
cinema that prohibited him from bringing his own drink.
Globally, three out of the six Disneyland parks are open to food and drinks from beyond its services, while the three in Asia - Tokyo, Hong
Kong and Shanghai - carry a no-outside-food-and-drink policy.
