CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Weekend specials were planned at Teays Valley Cinemas in Putnam County for what were going to be the first movie showings since the theater was closed in March because of the coronavirus pandemic along with movie theaters across West Virginia.
Week Six of Governor Jim Justice’s reopening plan for the Mountain State permitted operations to resume Friday, June 5, at movie theaters and casinos statewide under guidelines established to try to limit any virus spread.
The movie theater guidelines were available HERE.
In general, the guidelines addressed crowds, cleaning and customer screening and traffic.
For example, there were two options for crowd sizes: (1) limiting occupation to a maximum of 50 percent capacity based on total seats or (2) limiting occupation to a maximum capacity allowing for “proper social distancing” between people who don’t live together.
The Scott Depot site was one of the only theater locations MetroNews was able to identify as having definitive plans to begin operations again on Friday.
At Berkeley Theatres 7 in Martinsburg, next Friday, June 12, was the scheduled restart date.
“One of the biggest issues we’re having is the movies. There’s no new movies coming out until July 1st, so we’re going to have to play all older movies. That’s going to be different,” said Matthew Elliott, general manager for Berkeley Theatres.
The theater with its seven screens shut down on March 18th for the first time since 2007 following a 2006 fire that closed the theater for nine months soon after Elliott’s parents, Bob and Carol Elliott, took over the place as owners and operators.
Bob Elliott’s history with Berkeley Theatres, which first opened in 1965 and was rebuilt in 1983, dates back to 1974.
“We’re just happy to be able to get open,” Matthew Elliott told MetroNews on Thursday about the return to business in the pandemic.
Compliance with safety guidelines was expected to vary by theater.
To start, Elliott said they were going to rope off every other row for movie showings at Berkeley Theatres 7 and encourage social distancing among movie-goers.
Enforcement, though, could be a problem, he admitted.
“The way I look at it is, if you want to go out now, it’s at your own risk and we can’t force anybody to do anything, but we are going to encourage people to do the six-foot distance,” Elliott said.
Movie reopenings were permitted beginning Friday, but not required.
Many movie theaters in West Virginia had plans to continue closures until further notice after June 5.
Cinemark operates theaters at the Huntington Mall in Cabell County and the Meadowbrook Mall in Harrison County.
Company officials were the first of the major U.S. movie theater chains to announce reopenings which will take place in four phases beginning on June 19 and continuing until July 10.
“Theaters will reopen with enhanced health and safety protocols, enforced physical distancing and staggered showtimes,” a company statement provided to MetroNews indicated.
As of Thursday morning, there were no posted reopening dates for Regal Theatre sites in the Mountain State: Regal Morgantown, Regal Grand Central Mall and Regal Nitro.
No restart dates were available as well for Elkins Cinema 8, Tygart Valley Cinemas in Fairmont, South Branch Cinema 6 in Moorefield and GHTC Theatre sites in Logan, Lewisburg and Charleston.
Closures continued indefinitely for Marquee Cinemas, according to posted information for sites in Beckley, Triadelphia, Welch, Summersville, Huntington and South Charleston.
Officials with AMC Theaters, the world’s largest movie theater chain, indicated this week they had “substantial doubt” the company could remain in business after the pandemic closures.
AMC has locations in Morgantown and Bluefield.
The company previously indicated their theaters would not reopen without new movies to show, especially blockbusters to drive ticket sales.
Many movies originally scheduled for release this summer in the U.S. have been pushed back to the fall or next year.
Elliott said all of it added up to a tough time for the cinema business, like for so many others.
“We were in our slow months and then you get where you’re starting to pick back business up and then you’re hit with this and now you’re closed for three months,” Elliott said.
Since the March closure, Elliott said funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, small business relief created in the federal CARES Act, had allowed them to hire back staff members to await the reopening while being paid.
In all, 16 people work for Berkeley Theaters 7.
Going forward, Elliott was hopeful based on the number on inquiries about the reopening date.
“I think that when we reopen, even though we’re going to have older movies, people are going to want to get out and get back into the swing of things,” he said.
“A lot of people just like going to the movies.”
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Movie theaters are allowed to reopen Friday but many won't be doing so immediately - West Virginia MetroNews
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