Rowland Heights Theatre
18365 Colima Road,
Rowland Heights,
CA
91748
18365 Colima Road,
Rowland Heights,
CA
91748
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Reopened as the Rowland Heights theatre showing “Deep Throat” on December 6th, 1973. Ad posted.
The Theater was originally called Flack’s 5th Avenue theater, because that section of Colima Road was once called 5th Avenue once you left Hacienda Heights (or City of Industry) and entered into Rowland Heights. It is now Colima Road all the way through Rowland Heights and beyond. Flack’s 5th Avenue theater had a real cool marquee and I believe it was still Flack’s at the time they began showing Deep Throat, eventually the marquee was removed and the theater was later titled “Rowland Heights Theater” and it looked real seedy, and the name looked like it was hand painted on the outside, and it was all-adult films by this time..
justiceputnam posted he saw “2001” at this theatre in 1969. Well “2001” was still in it’s Roadshow engagement at the Warner Cinerama Hollywood Theatre, which ran with the move-over to the Warner Beverly Hills for a total of 103 weeks. “2001” opened on April 5 1968, that would have taken it to spring of 1970.
Here is an April 1974 item from the LA Times:
WEST COVINA-Theater operator George Voss faces a new trial May 21 at Citrus Municipal Court after his first trial on obscenity charges for showing “Deep Throat” at his Rowland Heights Theater ended in a hung jury. The jury of nine men and three women was dismissed Tuesday after the foreman reported that the jury was hopelessly deadlocked at 7-5 for acquittal. After a 16-week run, the film is no longer being shown and the theater is closed.
I guess Rowland Heights Theater is an aka, according to the ad.
Six times? That is one long day!
Here is an August 1974 ad from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/pmjwsz
The 5th Ave Theater was in existence in 1968. I saw “2001: A Space Odessey” there in 1969 six times in a row on one admission; such is the vitality of youth!
Here is a partial view of the restaurant. Please change the status to closed, based on the preceding comment.
http://tinyurl.com/5jd6f3
When I moved to Rowland Heights in 1978, there was a theater in the southeast corner of the strip mall you have described. A neighbor told me that it had previously shown children’s films, but it had converted to x-rated films by the time I came to town. It advertised itself modestly, so you didn’t really notice it was there unless you happened to look directly at it as you passed by. Even so, there was a group of mothers who objected to its presence. After several years of community protest, the theater was closed and replaced by a restaurant. A Japanese restaurant is there now, but it’s still the same building. It was never demolished.
The County Assessor doesn’t give information for this exact address. Most of the block is taken up by a huge parcel with the address 18305 Colima Road- apparently a shopping center containing four buildings, three of which have construction dates of 1964 and one of which dates from 1990. All the other addresses on the block (fronting directly on Colima Road) are higher or lower (18307, 18389, 18391) than the theater’s address.
The 5th Avenue is listed in the Independent Theatres section of the Times issue of February 10, 1971, but I can’t find it in the August 24, 1986 issue. I guess it was gone by then.
This stretch of Colima Road was once called Fifth Avenue, by the way.