Is it showtime yet?: Northern California theaters await movie-goer return after loosening of coronavirus restrictions

When Napa County on Oct. 20 moved to the orange tier of California’s coronavirus reopening plan, allowing movie theaters to increase indoor capacity to 50%, the owner of St. Helena’s Cameo Cinema wasn’t all that excited.

Cathy Buck has been allowed since Aug. 31 to operate at 25% capacity because the county was in the red tier, but she still hasn’t been able to fill even 30 of the total 140 seats.

“Most of the patrons aren’t comfortable coming back to the theater,” Buck said.

There also aren’t a lot of new movies available to show because filmmakers are postponing releases.

“I'm being very cautious that (the county) stays orange because the last time we could open theaters, I waited and then (Gov.) Gavin Newsom shut everything down (again) after the Fourth of July,” said Buck, who took ownership of the theater on Jan. 1, 2008.

Buck said Cameo Cinema has been able to survive this year thanks to Friends of the Cameo, the theater’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit arm that has been spearheading donations to keep the cinema afloat.

“They’ve been able to help us a lot. … We're just trying to keep the lights on and the doors open until all this goes away,” Buck said.

Santa Rosa Cinemas, which operates nine theaters in the state, got in one cult-movie showing on July 1 at its Roxy Stadium 14 in downtown Santa Rosa.

Then Newsom shut down the state again on July 13, said Neil Pearlmutter, vice president.

“We sat for more than a month and a half before Newsom came up with the tiered plan” in late August, he said.

The Santa Rosa-based company had planned to hold off reopening its eight other theaters until Warner Brothers released Tenet, a predicted blockbuster, later in July, he said.

But that didn’t happen.

Since late August, when the tiers took effect throughout the state, Santa Rosa Cinemas has been able to open four of its theaters in counties that are currently in the red tier, allowing for 25% capacity or 100 customers, whichever is fewer. Those theaters are located in San Joaquin, Fresno and Ventura counties.

“We're operating at a loss every week, but we figure it's better to try and be open, get people back into the habit of going to movies, and seeing the safety protocols that we've adopted and implemented,” Pearlmutter said.

But the company’s five theaters in Sonoma County, and another in Monterey County, remain idle as both counties remain in purple, the most restricted tier.

Since the pandemic started, business has been off by about 98% from this time last year. “It's been devastating,” Pearlmutter said.

“I know movie theaters are not considered an essential business, but the main point we're always making with anyone who listens, is we want to be treated the same as other (indoor) businesses that have been allowed to open,” Pearlmutter said. “I’m 100% certain that our theaters and how we would have people back based on occupancy, traffic flow, masks and everything else that we do … would be a lot safer than a lot of other businesses that are allowed to open.”

Century Theaters has six movie houses in the North Bay. Five are in Marin County, and one is in Napa County. All are currently open at 50% capacity in the orange tier, said Mark Zoradi, CEO of Plano, Texas-based Cinemark Holdings, Inc. Cinemark, which operates hundreds of theaters, also runs Century Theaters.

The pandemic hit the corporation hard.

“We closed all 550 theaters that we had around the world … and most of those theaters were completely closed for anywhere between five and seven months, with zero revenue coming in,” Zoradi said. “It had a gigantic, negative impact on our financials, so opening up in late August, early September, has been very, very important to us. Now we're open in 85% of the country.”

Even with the size of Cinemark, Zoradi said the San Francisco Bay Area is its biggest market in the country. At press time, he was preparing to reopen the company’s theaters in Alameda County, Santa Clara County and the city of San Francisco.

One of the ways Cinemark has been able to bring back some business during COVID-19 is through its private watch parties, which are popular in Marin County, he said. A group of up to 20 people can rent out an auditorium for between $99 and $150, depending on the movie and the size of the auditorium.

“This was just an innovation that came out of the COVID crisis,” he said. “People are a little concerned about being in an enclosed environment with people they don't know. … The private watch parties have been a great way for people to come back to the cinema for the first time and experience firsthand all the health and safety standards that we've put in place.”

Some movie theater companies, however, have not survived the pandemic.

Earlier this month, Sonoma 9 Cinema in the town of Sonoma permanently closed, according to Dave Corkill, owner of the theater’s parent company, Petaluma-based Cinema West, whose website currently lists 13 theaters in California and two in Idaho.

“We find ourselves forced to close and out of business because of a virus no one could have predicted and the irresponsible conduct of those that are spreading it,” Corkill told the Sonoma Index-Tribune.

The theater shuttered after showing its last film in March. All movie passes, tickets and gift cards will be accepted at the Boulevard Cinemas in Petaluma when it eventually reopens, Corkill told the outlet.