Seavue Theatre
816 Peace Portal Drive,
Blaine,
WA
98230
816 Peace Portal Drive,
Blaine,
WA
98230
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Full-page ad in the Vancouver newspaper:
Sea Vue full page ad from Blaine Washington 12 Aug 1978, Sat The Province (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) Newspapers.com
This closed at the end of March 1987 per the Vancouver newspapers. 3 screens in 1979.
October 1st, 1948 grand opening ad posted. Adult movies by 1965
Launched September 30, 1948 as the SeaVue Theatre, a quonset hut style theatre built in 1948. It likely closed on March 30, 1987 as ads are discontinued after showings of “Babe” and “Lose Times at Ridley High”
The SeaVue Theatre was at 816 Peace Portal Drive, in a building now occupied by a business called Hagan’s of Blaine, a shipping and receiving outfit. American Classic Images has photos of the SeaVue from 1980 and from 1987. Although the 1998 newspaper article Seattleprojectionist linked to (the EPA link is dead) said that the building was being demolished for a condo project, Google’s street view shows that it is still standing, as are its neighbors on both sides.
The venerable building was occupied by a theater at least as early as 1907. This house operated under the name Ivan L. Theatre at least into the mid-1930s. This (very long) web page about British Columbia’s movie theaters also has a few bits about theaters on the American side of the border. It says that the SeaVue opened in 1948, and might have been the same house earlier called the AM-BC Theatre and the International Theatre. The 1948 opening is plausible, but I’m a bit skeptical of the aka’s as Blaine did have at least two other theaters at various times, and one of them could have become the AM-BC/International. The Ivan L did vanish from newspaper listings about the time the AM-BC first appeared, though, so it’s possible they were the same house.
The Seavue was operated by Roger Forbes’s Playtime Theaters of Seattle. Playtime was a statewide circuit of XXX houses. As a very young projectionist with no seniority in the Projectionist’s Union, I worked for this company at a couple of their Seattle locations around 1980/81. A link to a newspaper article regarding a criminal case about illegal asbestos removal during the 1997 demolition: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19981110&slug=2782753 And a link to an Enviromental Protection Agency press release: https://archive.epa.gov/epapages/newsroom_archive/newsreleases/54bdbdc969e120c5852570cb0075e135.html
I remember the Seavue (is spelling correct?) because I lived in Vancouver, BC, during the 1970s and ‘80s and the theatre advertised fairly heavily on Vancouver rock radio stations; the commercials always urged Canadians to make a visit to the porn theatre a part of every day trip to the USA. I went to the Seavue once, in 1981 (because I had just turned 18) and the nice cashier lady said that many Blaine residents wanted the Seavue shuttered permanently. The theatre had two screens on as many floors, with a coin arcade in the basement. It also featured personal appearances by porn stars (which was very unusual for a puny border town). I’m pretty sure that the theatre was on the W side of Peace Portal Drive, and that it was not “demolished” but rather collapsed into Blaine Bay.