Park Plaza Twin Cinema

kencmcintyre on November 2, 2006 at 1:58 pm

Litigation was afoot in August 1975:

Hayes Inc. Files Anti-Trust Suit

BEAUMONT – A $6.5 million antitrust suit was filed in federal court
Friday charging that a New Orleans man and his employers have prevented competition among movie theaters in Port Arthur and stymied development of a shopping center by Hayes Inc. of Port
Arthur. Named as defendants in the suit were T G. Solomon of New Orleans. Gulf States Theatres Inc.. Gulf States Theatres of Texas and Piqua Industries, Inc.
Lloyd L Hayes, Hayes Inc, Park Plaza Twin Theatres Inc. and Mid-County Enterprises Inc. are the plaintiffs.

Hayes and Hayes Inc are saying they suffered over 5 million in damages as a result of Solomon’s “maneuvering”, while Park Plaza claims it lost over $500,000 in revenues from what they call his “anticompetitive and unfair tactics ”.

Mid-County Enterprises say the defendants overt threats prevented
them from building a planned drive-in theater and lost them over $1 million. They are asking the court restrain defendants from further alleged violations of anti-trust laws and for recovery of damages in triplicate.

Also during this same period of time, the suit says that Hayes contacted investors with the idea of building a drive-in
theater on the northwest side of Port Arthur. Mid County Enterprises Inc. was organized June 19, 1972 and they leased a tract of and along U.S. Hwy 69 planning to build a drive-in theater there.

But this plan was halted, they say, when Solomon told them if they build the drive-in, he would retaliate by building one directly across the road from them. Since defendants already owned the
Don Drive-In, and the newly-formed corporation would not have been able to undergo a sustained period of loss, the drive-in idea was aborted, the complaint states.

rivest266 on September 19, 2009 at 12:19 pm

Thanks, Ken MC. I uploaded the grand opening ads at View link