EAST AURORA, N.Y. (WKBW) — After almost ten months of struggling to reopen, and taking all the steps to adhere to COVID-19 guidelines,
the Aurora Theatre is taking a break.
The announcement comes as owner Lynn Kinsella said the movie industry unfortunately has not improved.
“We took a look at the release schedule for movies for the next couple of months, and it’s very few and far between. And we also saw that many of the movies were already moving out of January and February to the spring season,” she said.
And the holiday season saw very low attendance.
“We respect that people might not be comfortable yet coming back to the movies, although we have all the safety protocols in place. And we just thought it would be the best decision at this point,” said Kinsella.
She said the theater also faced attendance restrictions, events were not permitted, and they could not sell concessions because indoor dining is not allowed.
Kinsella and other movie theater owners had called for the state to allow them to reopen in August of last year.
Across the United States, thousands of full and part-time movie theater employees have been laid off or furloughed since the pandemic began.
But this isn’t goodbye for good.
Kinsella said this is only a temporary situation; she’s looking into show movies in April should circumstances change. Their popcorn shop remains open.