Cambria County, Pa. (WJAC) — While staying at home for weeks throughout the coronavirus pandemic many people have enjoyed their fair share of movies on the small screen.
As counties now move into the green phase of the states reopening plan, you can now enjoy a movie on the big screen again as theatres start to reopen.
Richland Cinemas in Cambria County has started a slow phased reopening as they adjust to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and The Westwood Plaza Theatre is on its way to opening soon.
Edward Troll, the owner of Richland Cinemas, says they’re following CDC guidelines similar to what restaurants have to follow since they serve food.
“We have two people behind the concession stand. We’ve equipped that with the acrylic barriers and stuff and made that a cash free area. The card swipes are on the outside of the acrylic barrier so the person can swipe their debit card, credit card or gift card to make their purchase,” said Troll.
Troll says staff at Richland Cinemas will also have temperature checks before every shift, wear masks and an employee will in charge of wiping down surfaces throughout the day.
While adjusting to reopening, Troll says they’ll have limited show times with discounted movie tickets for $6. And as for how customers can enjoy the show, Troll says theatre’s will be at half capacity and customers need to wear a mask while entering and moving around the building but can take it off once they’re in their seat for the show.
“Keep a couple seats between your group and the next group and don’t sit directly behind or in front of anybody in the rows. Our staff will go in just before show time and on the charts we’ve made and will mark where people were sitting to make our cleaning as effective and clean as we can when people leave the room,” said Troll
Blake Fleegle, the owner of the Westwood Plaza Theatre, says they hope to reopen soon and have plans in place that will follow CDC guidelines, but not having any new movies to show is holding them back.
“We’re open 365 days a year. Christmas, New Years, Easter we’re open every single day and it’s been like that since I’ve been here for 11 years. And now effective March 17th we haven’t had any customers here for almost 3 months so it’s a little bit different than normal,” said Fleegle
Fleegle says they’re excited to be able to welcome back customers when they’re ready and while it’s been a scary experience having to stay closed for so long they’re remaining hopeful.
“The problem I have is that there isn’t any feature films to play and there won’t be until sometime in July. So, we will open in advance of those for a few weeks and we will play some older content, but I can’t do that for 6 to 8 weeks for sure without knowing when the movies are going to come out,” said Fleegle.
Once they’re able to reopen, Fleegle says he hopes to have discounted movie tickets for older movies they’ll screen before any new movies are released. For the time being, Fleegle says they have to-go popcorn and movie snacks for sale on Fridays and Saturdays.
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