Life & Styles Regal theater in North Olmsted the latest in rash of local, nationwide closures

By KELLY COYNE Contributing Writer

The Regal movie theater inside the Great Northern Mall in North Olmsted has joined the ranks of several other recently closed Northeast Ohio cinemas. Jan. 27 marked the theater’s final day of movie showings.

The Regal Great Northern Mall closure adds to a growing list of local theaters going out of business.

Chagrin Cinemas and AMC Classic Solon 16 closed in January and – as The Exponent reported last year – the Regal Middleburg Heights multiplex closed in September of 2022. Regal Montrose in Akron is set to close soon, with a date not yet announced.

Baldwin Wallace film studies professor Paul Peters said that while he still manages to catch films in theaters, the rapid decline of available movie theater options is alarming.

“For me it’s a much greater concern that we’re losing movie theaters so quickly like this ... If I want to go to a movie theater and I’m local, there’s going to be a lot more limited options for me to actually go,” Peters said. Today, streaming is playing a pivotal role in the film industry, with many high-profile studios and production companies, like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, forgoing theatrical runs in place of streaming premieres for some tentpole films.

Despite the convenience and accessibility of streaming, movie theaters provide unique benefits for Peters as opposed to home viewing, including the heightened experience and early access to films with longer theatrical windows. The movie theater

Trans Ohioans still being denied gender marker corrections to their birth certificates

allows one to be immersed in the movie with its sound systems and projection screens, Peters said.

Regal’s parent company, Cineworld, filed for bankruptcy in 2022. The company’s debt is upwards of $5 billion for Cineworld as it struggles to shake off the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and the decline in theater audiences nationwide. For Cineworld, closing theaters is part of a strategy to save money and pay off their debt.

The hope for the North Olmsted theater upon its construction in 2013 was that it would have increased attendance due to its location as a mall theater. However, the theater’s closure is not a first for the area. A previous, smaller Regal location in a plaza adjacent to the mall was closed in 2000 due to declining profits, according to Cleveland.com.

Peters said that while multiplexes – theatres with multiple screens like the 10-screen Regal Great Northern Mall or the 16-screen Regal Middleburg Town Square – will be the most affected since they require more customers to break even. Arthouse and specialty cinemas may stand a better chance going forward, Peters said.

“People are still going to go to arthouse cinemas, it has special appeal. If anything, I think movies might become more of a specialty item,” Peters said.

Baldwin Wallace junior Nevan Quinn said that he has been an avid movie theater viewer his whole life. As a Regal Unlimited member, he sees roughly two movies per month. On Christmas Eve last year, Quinn saw the Santa Claus-themed slasher “Violent Night” with his family at the North Olmsted theater. Quin said he and his family were the only ones in attendance.

Quinn said that movie theaters provide him with a sense of nostalgia. Growing up he went to midnight screenings of Marvel movies with his brother.

“For a Marvel movie, for me, it’s an experience that you can’t really get at home,” Quinn said. “For example, my brother and I saw ‘SpiderMan: No Way Home,’ and when Tobey [Maguire] and Andrew [Garfield] showed up, the theater went nuts. That’s something that I won’t forget and something I won’t get at an at home movie experience.”

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By H.L. COMERIATO

The Buckeye Flame

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by The Buckeye Flame.

On December 16, 2020, a Federal District Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny transgender people the ability to correct the gender markers on their birth certificates.

At the time, Ohio was one of just two states that still refused to grant trans people those corrections.

Now, more than two years later, probate court judges in Ohio’s more rural and conservative counties are still denying gender marker birth certificate corrections to trans Ohioans based on their individual interpretations of the ruling.

“The current situation in Ohio is nothing short of a constitutional crisis,” said James Knapp — an Ohio-based LGBTQ+ activist, attorney and chair of the board of directors at TransOhio.

Thankfully, Knapp also said trans Ohioans don’t have to navigate this crisis alone.

Creating a new process for trans Ohioans

For years, Knapp and other LGBTQ+ advocates and organizations across Ohio lobbied the Ohio Department of Health to implement an official process for correcting the gender markers on transgender people’s birth certificates.

“For a long time, ODH has been saying no,” Knapp said. He said that refusal is what led to the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio in 2018.

After the case was settled in 2020, ODH created an official process for correcting gender markers on birth certificates via Ohio’s probate judges — like any other routine birth certificate correction.

“The Supreme Court of Ohio issued its own model probate [birth certificate correction] form, and each of Ohio’s 88 probate courts are supposed to accept it,” Knapp said. “So far, 27 of them have refused to do so.”

“They’re saying that even if they wanted to grant birth certificate corrections, they don’t have the authority to do so,” he added. “We have a lawsuit that states otherwise.”

Ohio’s probate court judges still deny gender marker corrections

In order to correct the gender markers on their birth certificates, trans Ohioans must first obtain a court ordered correction of their birth record. Then, that order goes in front of a probate court judge.

In 2022 in Clark County, OH — a conservative county with a population of about 135,000 — a transgender woman submitted all the necessary paperwork for a gender marker birth certificate correction via Clark County Probate Court.

“Under probate court where she lived, she submitted everything she needed,” said Knapp, but her request was denied based solely on the judge’s transphobic interpretation of the word ‘correct’ as it refers to gender or gender identity.

In another instance, a Mahoning County Probate Court judge explicitly noted that he chose to deny a transgender woman’s request to change her gender marker on her birth certificate because he did not interpret the gender marker change as a ‘correction.’

Now, the Supreme Court of Ohio and other courts are using that case as precedent.

“Stark County no longer grants [birth certificate gender marker corrections],” Knapp said. “They say they might not have the authority.”

Trans Ohioans still have options

Knapp, a longtime resident of Northeast Ohio, said the recent treatment of trans people in courtrooms across the state is alarming and has been difficult to witness.

“The Ohio Name Change Legal Clinic has seen an uptick in [reports of] judges who are following transphobic lines of questioning during simple name changes,” he added. “This is exclusively impacting transgender people. That’s the worst part about this.”

In places like Franklin County and Cuyahoga County, probate court judges often grant gender marker corrections on birth certificates for trans people without issue.

In more rural, conservative counties — where trans Ohioans run the risk of encountering a probate court judge who would deny their requests based on transphobic ideas about gender — Knapp said trans Ohioans do still have options.

For instance, a trans person must be able to prove they’ve lived in that county for at least 60 days in order to file for gender marker birth certificate correction via probate court, but they may also be able to file in the county where they were born.

If both of those counties are more rural or conservative, trans people looking to correct their birth certificates can also file in the county where their gestational parent lived while pregnant.

That change of venue could allow many trans Ohioans to take their case to a more liberal court in a more liberal county.

Where to

Find Legal Help

TransOhio — along with Equality Ohio, Equitas Health and the Ohio Name Change Legal Clinic— offer free resources and legal clinics to help trans Ohioans navigate both name changes and birth certificate corrections.

“If you’re denied, you only have a short period of time to appeal,” Knapp said. “So please reach out immediately, because we can help.”

The ACLU of Ohio also maintains a detailed walkthrough of the entire gender marker birth certificate correction process.

Knapp said the road ahead is still wrought with legal obstacles for trans Ohioans, but he isn’t without hope.

“I want trans folks to brace themselves for another onslaught of antitrans legislation,” he said. “But know that we’re going to win. [Know] that this is unconstitutional, and we’re going to come out on top.”

The Buckeye Flame is a platform dedicated to amplifying the voices of LGBTQ+ Ohioans to support community and civic empowerment through the creation of engaging content that chronicles their triumphs, struggles and lived experiences. Its Editor is Baldwin Wallace University professor Ken Schneck. Visit thebuckeyeflame.com.