Dollar cinema closes curtains for final time

Karen Zekan

Monday, Dec. 1, 1997 | 10:05 a.m.

It was the beginning of the end for Eric Peterson as the lights in the Mountain View 3 cinema dimmed, the projector quietly whirred into gear, and the first few images flickered upon the screen for Sunday's 9:45 p.m. showing of "The Peacemaker."

The nuclear thriller's theme had little to do with Peterson's melancholy. Rather, it was saying an abrupt goodbye to an opportunity he never really had.

The discount cinema where Peterson, 18, had been hired as a projectionist barely a month ago shut down for good shortly after the credits rolled up on the screen.

The levers, lights and slippery celluloid strips had been a gold mine for Peterson -- landing the job helped him get off the streets and into an apartment, he said. But at a dollar a seat -- and many of those seats going empty too many nights -- parent company Dollar Cinema reported losing money with each movie.

"I don't really blame the managers," Peterson said, having learned a week into his training that the job he'd come to love would be over by the end of the month.

"Their hands were tied. It's tough for me because I really wanted this job. I was born in this neighborhood, I've seen this theater since I was a baby, and I went to the movies here with my mom and dad. Now it's closing, and I'm out of a job, right before Christmas. It's odd, too, because the holidays are when this theater is the busiest."

Ironically, Mountain View's attendance figures hit a record high last month, employees said, with more than 1,000 people each paying their dollar admission and buying a mammoth amount of candy and popcorn Nov. 15.

The three-screen property off Jones Boulevard and Desert Inn Road was taken over by Dollar Cinemas in March when another discount company, A Theater Near You, shut down. Payless Cinemas at one time also had a stake in the shopping mall site.

Dollar has claimed it lost as much as $100,000 on Mountain View, prompting it to close the west side property and keep its profit making discount movie houses, Paradise 6 and Sunrise 7, both in eastern Las Vegas.

Mountain View workers were offered transfers to the other two theaters. Some accepted; others, like Peterson, opted to look elsewhere, fearing overstaffing would limit the chance to get hours.

A blue mood seemed contagious as each customer was told the brightly colored theater would be but a memory come midnight.

"This will probably be the last time I'll go to the movies," said 15-year-old Christopher Roberts, waiting on a lobby bench for "George of the Jungle" to start.

"This is where I come all the time. It's really sad. I like watching movies, and I'm always here because the theater's cheap and it's close to my house. I've seen every movie they've had here in the past five months."

Roberts is one of the regulars Mountain View employees have come to know and credit in part for making the theater feel a bit like home. "Perfume Guy" is another -- a friendly face whose real name no one knows. "He comes in here every day," said concession worker Catrina Constantino, "and he smells real good!"

"It's always very clean in here and very comfortable," said Miguel Gajardov, who with his wife, Katrin, and two young sons have been seeing movies at Mountain View 3 for four years.

"We'll probably start going to that other theater," Katrin Gajardov said, "that one on Sahara."

Word of "that other theater" saw Mountain View 3's employees shrug their shoulders and look away.

Once their rival, Torrey Pines Discount Cinema today reigns supreme as the only cheap movie house on the west side of the valley. Flicks at the three-screen theater at Sahara Avenue and Torrey Pines Drive go for 99 cents.

"Now the competition will get our customers," said Jason Andrews, 23, hired in March to work the concession stand, promoted to projectionist two days later and, a week after that, to assist in managing the property.

It was Andrews' job to take the letters down from the marquee overnight and load the movies into the film cans to be shipped off. A cleanup team was scheduled to come in this morning and begin stripping down the rest and truck the snack bar's leftover goodies to the company's other two theaters.

"I think more than anything I'll miss the projectors in this place," Andrews said. "They're older than dinosaurs! I was here when we jerry-rigged them to get them to work. The problem most of the time was the film, not the projectors. Those machines never let us down."