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Arts & Culture

La Paloma Theater Reopens

Vintage image of La Paloma Theater that was built in 1928. It reopens tonight with certain social distancing and other guidelines in place.
La Paloma
Vintage image of La Paloma Theater that was built in 1928. It reopens tonight with certain social distancing and other guidelines in place.

Encinitas venue will be at 25 percent capacity

La Paloma Theater in Encinitas has announced that it will be re-opening Friday night. Here's what to expect.

La Paloma Theater joins the South Bay Drive-In and Santee Drive-In as venues people can go out to and watch movies. Other San Diego area theaters are also planning to reopen with July being looked at as earliest possibility. Smaller venues such as Digital Gym Cinema and Cinema Under the Stars may open earlier but the 25% capacity makes it impossible to turn any kind of profit for such small venues.

La Paloma Theater opened in 1928 and has been home to an eclectic array of films and live music. But like cinemas across the country it was forced to close due to the coronavirus.

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Ralph Fiennes stars in Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel," the first film to welcome audiences back at La Paloma Theater.
Fox Searchlight
Ralph Fiennes stars in Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel," the first film to welcome audiences back at La Paloma Theater.

An email that went out Thursday announced the theater would reopen Friday at 25% of its 390-seat capacity. Tickets can be purchased online or at the box office. But both the box office and concessions are cash only. Face coverings are required whenever physical distancing cannot be maintained but masks may be removed during the film as long as you are six feet from others. People from the same household, however, are allowed to sit next to each other.

"The Grand Budapest Hotel" and "Little Miss Sunshine" kick off the film programming this weekend. Coming soon the theater promises the theme-appropriate "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee and "Contagion" from Steven Soderbergh.

A complete list of showtimes is on the website.

La Paloma Theater Reopens
Listen to this story by Beth Accomando.