Vecino Theatre

The Chico Vecino neighborhood now known as The Avenues had a new build theatre that opened on October 28, 1949 with Gregory Peck in “The Yearling” as the Vecino Theatre. The multipurpose venue and building was built by Ben Steffen in 1949. The Vecino Theatre Building once housed an art gallery and a trucking office.

A change of operator in 1951 found the Estes Brothers, Woodrow and LeRoy, running the theatre. They converted it to widescreen operation but ceased operations on September 4, 1957. In a lawsuit, they sued United California Circuit with an antitrust violation. They claimed that United had changed the policy of the competing El Rey Theatre from second to first run using both it and the Senator Theatre to block first run features from the Vecino Theatre.

1. Arthur Fox, who had two Seattle theatres, relaunched a year later on August 27, 1958 as a sub-run discount housed with a double-feature of “Merry Andrews,” starring Danny Kaye with “The Devil’s Hairpin,” starring Cornel Wilde. That didn’t work out so Joe and Kay Clark moved from Seattle to operate the theatre in 1959 incorporating some live performances including rock shows. They also connected with Butte County College to offer curated repertory screenings.

Shows included the serial, “The Adventures of Captain Marvel” with stars Frank Coghlan, Jr., and Billy Benedict on hand and a Strother Martin film festival with Martin in person to introduce a culminating world premiere screening of “Come In, Children” on May 16, 1970. Music performers including Bittersweet, John Lapado and Sundance - the latter of which sang “Chico Women” to an enthusiastic crowd - played on the Vecino Theatre stage.

But it was in the porno chic era that the Vecino Theatre finally found its audience. Playing adult films on the weekends and Spanish language films on weekdays proved to be a hit raising visibility for the final operator, Aldo Baccala. But following a successful run of “Deep Throat", the town protested against “The Devil in Miss Jones” with the sheriff seizing the film on August 2, 1974, after just the third showing. That only helped visibility and the adult screenings continued. That is until a year later when on July 28, 1975, the adult/Spanish film house was completely destroyed by fire ending its run.

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