Santa Barbara News-Press: October 03, 2020

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Back on the big screen Two Metropolitan Theatre cinemas officially reopen for movies

Hoping for a speedy recovery Local Dems, Republicans hope Trumps quickly recover from COVID-19 By JOSH GREGA NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

Prominent Democratic Party and GOP members expressed hope that President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have speedy recoveries from COVID-19. The president announced via Twitter late Thursday night that he and the First Lady had tested positive for the coronavirus just after White House aide Hope Hicks also tested positive. His tweet read, “Tonight, @ FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!” On Friday, President Trump posted a video to Twitter announcing that he was doing “very well” following his diagnosis and was going to Walter Reed

National Military Medical Center “to make sure that things work out.” Santa Barbara County GOP chairwoman Bobbi McGinnis told the News-Press that her thoughts and prayers were with the president and first lady. She was optimistic about them recovering from the virus. “I think he’ll be up and running in no time,” she said. Ms. McGinnis added that she expects President Trump’s recovery will be speedy enough that he’ll be able to participate in the second presidential debate scheduled for Oct. 15 in Miami, and that he will be informed on the pandemic from the perspective of someone who has experienced the coronavirus. “I think he definitely will be at the first debate, and he’ll be Please see trumps on A7

KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOS

Metropolitan Theatres Camino Real Cinemas in Goleta welcomed back guests Friday for the first time in six months due to COVID-19 restrictions. The theatre is operating at 25% capacity.

By JOSH GREGA NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

Metropolitan Theatres finally opened two of its Santa Barbara area cinemas to the public on Friday following Santa Barbara County’s move into the red tier. The two theaters now open for screenings are the Camino Real Cinema in the Camino Real Marketplace and the Fiesta 5 Theatres, located at 916 State St. They are both reduced to 25% capacity. In an interview with the News-Press, Metropolitan Theatres president David Corwin expressed great pleasure that the theater chain has started opening back up. “We’re certainly happy to be back in business,” he said. Moviegoers felt the same way. After stopping by Camino Real to inquire about tickets for a later screening, Santa Barbara resident Max Haws spoke to the News-Press and said theaters reopening was a sign of things going back to normal. Since his son was back from out of town, he and his family figured now it would be nice to catch a flick for the first time in a long time. “We were thinking it might be a great opportunity to see a movie again since we haven’t gone to a theater in six months,” he said. Ojai resident and Dos Pueblos high school culinary arts teacher Terri Ingram was at Camino Real to see “Tenet” and said the last time she saw a movie was when she was visiting Florida a few weeks ago. She remarked that seeing a movie on Friday felt “great” just as it did when she was in Florida. On Friday, both Fiesta 5 and Camino Real played three showings in each of their auditoriums. These included one late afternoon showing and two evening showings. Over this weekend, the theaters will also have three showings per auditorium, but will have matinees as well as evening screenings. According to Mr. Corwin, the two reopened theaters will have three screenings per auditorium on weekend days, and two screenings per auditorium on weekdays. While Christopher Nolan’s thriller “Tenet” and the comedy “Save Yourselves!” are playing at both locations, Fiesta 5 exclusively has Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and drama “The 40-Year-Old Version.” Camino Real has the Marvel horror film “The New Mutants,” the thriller “Unhinged,”

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An attendant receives payment for parking at city Lot 7 on Friday. Soon the in-person kiosks will be replaced with automated license plate recognition systems.

Santa Barbara to implement license plate readers By GRAYCE MCCORMICK NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

Metropolitan Fiesta 5 Theatre in Santa Barbara has officially reopened. The theater is screening films such as “Break the Silence,” “Tenet,” Save Yourselves!” as well as “Trial of Chicago 7” and “The 40-Year-Old Version.”

action flick “Ava,” and the Charles Dickens adaptation “The Personal History of David Copperfield.” “You want some there to be some variety so there’s more than the same five movies at both ends of town,” Mr. Corwin said. When it comes to new releases, Mr. Corwin said October is going to be a “pretty light” month. Next week it is expected to receive the Robert DeNiro family comedy “The War With Grandpa,” with horror film “The Wolf of Snow Hollow.” Action thriller “Honest Thief” is also scheduled to come out in October. That said, Metropolitan Theatres’ calendar is currently in flux as movie distribution companies move their releases around in order to get the biggest possible audiences under the circumstances. For instance, Metropolitan Theatres is expected to have a major release in November with the animated Disney movie “Soul.” On Friday, it lost the release of the 25th

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email: jgrega@newspress.com

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James Bond film “No Time to Die” when it was announced the film’s release will be pushed to April 2021. Whatever films Metropolitan Theatres manages to get a hold of, Mr. Corwin hopes the county moves into the next tier as soon as possible so the cinemas can increase to 50% capacity. In order to attract more people into cinemas, Metropolitan Theatres is offering its discounted pricing normally reserved for Tuesdays from Sunday through Thursday, with members getting double points. The reopened theaters are taking safety precautions such as every other row remaining empty, three seats separating parties, and disinfecting auditoriums after each screening. Theater guests are required to wear masks at all times except when eating and drinking while seated in auditoriums.

Soon there will be no more fumbling for a crinkled ticket buried in a purse or straining outside the driver’s window to wave a proximity card in Santa Barbara’s public parking lots. The city is one more step away from replacing in-person kiosks at public lots with Automated License Plate Recognition systems, which simply read each entering car’s license plate to determine how long the cars used the parking space. If parkers use the parking lot within the allotted complimentary time (example: 75 minutes), the gate will automatically open when they exit. If they exceed the allowed time, the system will charge whatever amount is due, and parkers can just pay with their credit card. On Tuesday, the Santa Barbara City Council voted unanimously to install these systems at the downtown, waterfront and airport parking lots. The final step before installation now is receiving council approval of the equipment, which will cost around $500,000.

“We don’t like to do things until the technology is really proven,” said Rob Dayton, the city’s transportation planning and parking manager. “It’s something that’s used pretty universally in the parking world these days and it’s gotten really good in terms of the technology.” He told the News-Press the systems are a customer service enhancement, because out of 5 million tickets a year for the parking systems in Santa Barbara, 60% end up being complimentary. In addition, the Paseo Nuevo Mall parking garage already utilizes an ALPR system with mounted cameras. “Initially, it’s expensive, but labor is more expensive than the cameras over time,” Mr. Dayton said. “The downtown parking system has been slowly generating less and less revenue for a couple different reasons. One is we have less parkers downtown as the economic status of downtown has waned. The other thing is that the cost of running the parking business has gone up, particularly because of the minimum wage in California.” During the pandemic, the city’s Please see plates on A8

Obituaries............. A8 Soduku................. A5 Weather................ A8

Wednesday’s SUPER LOTTO: 3-23-28-46-47 Meganumber: 25

Friday’s DAILY 4: 3-4-4-8

Friday’s MEGA MILLIONS: 9-38-47-49-68 Meganumber: 25

Friday’s FANTASY 5: 21-25-31-35-37

Friday’s DAILY DERBY: 10-06-11 Time: 1:41.58

Wednesday’s POWERBALL: 14-18-36-49-67 Meganumber: 18

Friday’s DAILY 3: 8-3-0 / Sunday’s Midday 5-6-7


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