Paradise Cinema 7

The venue opened May 18, 1999 with “The Phantom Menace.” It added two screens for its May 19, 1999 operation adding “October Sky” and “Life is Beautiful.” It would then get to its seven screen operation. It would close on November 7, 2018 due to a spreading wildfire. Though the building stood, it did not reopen.

Have the current bushfires in California had any effect further effect on the town of Paradise or this theatre building?

PG&E had power restored to most standing structures within just a few weeks of the fire. Other overhead utilities (telephone, cable) were also quickly restored. Water was a bit more of a problem as the system was already old and in need of constant repair, and many surviving pipes were contaminated by the fire. Most of the system serving structures that survived and new builds has now been restored, but some dead-end streets with no surviving structures or new builds remain to be repaired.

The town never had a sewer system, and was the largest community without one in the United States. A sewer system to serve primarily the main commercial corridors was in the preliminary planning stage at the time of the fire (and had been for years) and there are now plans to go through with that project if it can be financed. But rebuilding is proceeding very slowly, and as of April 6 this year only 81 houses had been rebuilt, though 883 additional permits had been issued. At the current pace it would probably take eight to ten years to replace the 8000 units lost in the fire, but I doubt that pace will continue. The burst was mostly the result of the fact that insurance companies will cover loss of use for only three years if you are rebuilding, and only two if you aren’t. A lot of the housing was not insured, and once everybody insured who intends to rebuild has done so the pace of rebuilding is bound to slow down.

The problem is that the town has lost its economic foundation, which was primarily pension and investment money. Over the decades a lot of retired people moved there because housing was cheap and the town was picturesque, and now both of those features are gone. It will be difficult to attract more retired people to replace those who are not returning, and with a smaller retired population there will be less economic activity to support working people. The hospital, for example, was the largest employer in the town, with over 1000 employees, but now that its patients are gone it is unneeded, and unlikely to fully reopen anytime soon. The school district was the next largest employer, but without the workers at the hospital and other businesses that lost their customers there are far fewer kids in town, and thus fewer teachers and other school personnel are needed.

To some extent the town was also a bedroom community for commuters from Chico and Oroville, but those commuters were attracted for the same reason the retirees had been— picturesqueness, relatively inexpensive housing, and a decent amount of goods and services available locally thanks to the spending of all those retired people, plus the economic multiplier effects of the employees of those goods and service suppliers themselves. So the place isn’t even as attractive as a bedroom community as it once was. The likely result of all this is that it will not be fully rebuilt anytime soon, unless somebody there can come up with a replacement for all that retirement income that was its economic foundation, and that too seems very unlikely. The owners of this theater would have been better off if the place had burned, assuming they were insured. They could have used their capital to build a theater somewhere else. Now they are probably stuck with a white elephant that might not be economically viable for a decade or more, and might never become viable again.

The website for this theatre says to go to the websites for their sister cinema(Lakeport Cinema) and Lakeport Drive-in. both in Lakeport, California.

The theeater’s web site still says “Visit our sister theatre at Lakeportcinema.com” and “Visit our drive-in theatre in Lakeport California.” Google Maps updated their satellite view not long after the fire, and very little reconstruction has been done since then, so if you look at and see the devastation you can see how unlikely it is that this theater will be able to reopen anytime soon. The town is still pretty close to empty, and it’s likely to be years before re-habitation sufficient to support a theater will take place, even with some people living in temporary housing, such as RVs, on their burned-out lots.

It hasn’t reopened. While some neighborhoods above Paradise survived the fire, as well as scattered houses in the town itself, and some people have moved back in, the current population is insufficient to support a movie theater. A regional supermarket chain reopened its store that is not far from the theater on December 28, but I don’t know how much business they are doing. Extensive reconstruction, if it takes place, will have to wait until the removal of debris is done, and that won’t be compete until much later this year.

That notice has to be for their other theater in Lakeport. Paradise has no utilities and (very important for a business) no population. The entire town has been evacuated, and will remain so well into next year. Even when utilities have been restored to the handful of surviving buildings, they will accommodate only a small fraction of the displaced population. I’d be surprised if this theater opened by Thanksgiving of 2021. Due to the nature of the local economy, which very likely cannot be revived, it may never reopen.

The latest map of destroyed buildings does not yet show the status of the theater, but several buildings in commercial areas very nearby are shown as intact or moderately damaged. This includes a K-mart that was initially reported as destroyed, so it is looking more hopeful for the theater building, but not the business.

The town has virtually no surviving utility infrastructure, even the water system being shut down. Nobody will be living there for a long time to come. We aren’t even going to be allowed back in to sift through the ashes of our houses for two or three more weeks, after they’ve cleared the streets of burned out cars and downed utility lines.

I’m surprised this cinema building hasn’t caught fire, there is bush behind it!!

On the Paradise Cinema 7 Facebook site the theatre is safe and just closed at this time. It did not burn down. Probably has smoke damage. The staff and owners are ok. .

I hope that when it is safe to do so, someone can check on the theater to see if it actually survived the fires.

I tried calling their showtimes phone number but all I got was a screech and a fast busy signal. I guess that means phone lines are down in their area.

Did this theater get caught in the big fire that destroyed the town of Paradise yesterday?