Toronto residents apparently hit the movies earlier this week — on the day public transit was shutdown by a wildcat strike, debit and credit card system operator Moneris Solutions said Friday.

The disruption of the Toronto Transit Commission's services by unionized employees on May 29 left thousands of other workers with a day off, or forced to take alternative transportation.

Moneris said its has analyzed debit and credit card transaction volumes from its thousands of merchant customers across the Greater Toronto Area from Monday, May 29, and compared them to previous Mondays from April 17 to May 15, excluding Monday May 22, which was the Victoria Day holiday.

The company said transactions at health services providers, which includes hospitals, doctors, optometrists, dentists and chiropractors, were off by 22 per cent.

Specialty retailers, such as florists, book stores, shoe stores and sporting goods stores, among others, also experienced a decline of 20 per cent in spending volume.

The winners on the day were movie theatres with an increase of 32 per cent. Parking lots also saw card spending rise 15 per cent during the disruption, and restaurants were up seven per cent.

"It looks like Torontonians found the 'Better Way' to cope with the TTC service disruption was to head to the movies rather than brave the horrendous traffic," said Brian Green, a senior vice president at Moneris.

Moneris did not detail what those charges amounted to in dollars.