It is happening more and more often.
What is rare is if it gets reported in the news.
Reminds me of when I was younger and lived in downtown Denver for a while after college. The city spent millions revitalizing 16th street with upscale shopping centers, restaurants and movie theaters in an area that was formerly home to pawn shops and porno stores. No sooner than it opened, it attracted the thugs looking for easy prey and goods to shoplift.
Shortly after it opened, some friends and I went to the brand-new theater to spend our money and take in a film. Unaccustomed to seeing movies in an "urban" setting, I was taken aback by the fact that people just wouldn't stop talking through the film. Cell phones ringing, whooping and hollering, just constant noise. Being wiser than the filmgoer in this article, I wasn't about to politely ask the noisy viewers to STFU. Instead, my friends and I left after 20 minutes into the film and demanded refunds. We told the manager exactly why. He gave us our money back. Needless to say, if I'm going to spend my hard-earned money seeing a movie these days, I'll choose a theater in the 'burbs.
I haven't been back in a while. It's a shame, really. All that money spent to turn a decaying part of town in to someplace beautiful and revenue-enhancing and the local denizens try their best to ruin it by scaring away all the people with money to spend.