(I just sent this letter to Matt Fleury, the president and CEO of the Connecticut Science Center.)
Mr. Fleury,
On Friday, August 21, my family and I were “stranded” in Hartford for the weekend. We are observant Jews, and therefore riding in cars is forbidden to us during the Sabbath, from Friday evening through Saturday night. We were on our way home from New Jersey to Boston on that day, and we realized as we drove through Hartford that because of unexpected traffic delays, we were not going to make it home in time for the Sabbath. With less than an hour until the start of the Sabbath, we stopped in Hartford and started looking for a place to stay; we ended up at the downtown Marriott, right next door to the Science Center.
We are also forbidden from watching TV on the Sabbath, nor are we permitted to spend money or write. Therefore, as you might imagine, finding a way to occupy our five children for the entire Sabbath in these unexpected surroundings was a substantial challenge.
On Saturday morning, desperate for something to do with the kids, we walked over to the Science Center, explained our situation to a member of your staff at the admissions desk, and asked if it would be possible, given our unusual and difficult predicament, to visit the Center without paying. She called over a supervisor, to whom we explained the situation again. The supervisor said that she could not let us in without paying “in fairness to our other guests who pay.”
Let me be blunt: That’s stupid, antithetical to your mission, and unlikely to help you to draw more visitors in the future.
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