Following Monday’s announcement that movie theaters in New York City will be allowed to open on March 5, Showcase Cinemas has announced that three of their locations—two in Queens, one in Brooklyn—will reopen on that date.
Governor Cuomo’s announcement—long-anticipated yet sudden—gives theaters in NYC the ability to reopen at 25 percent capacity, with a maximum of 50 attendees per auditorium. Theaters in the city were legally ordered to close on March 16 of last year; in October, theaters in wider New York State were allowed to re-open in counties where Covid infection numbers stayed below a certain point. At that time, Showcase re-opened five of their New York State locations; they have also re-opened theaters in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Ohio.
All of Showcase’s re-opened theaters—including the three New York locations set to open their doors on March 5—are operating under the chain’s Be Showcase Safe program, which includes under its protocols:
- Temperature checks and symptoms screenings for employees
- Required face coverings for employees and patrons
- Installation of new air filtration systems
- Enforced social distancing
- The adoption of contactless payment options
More information about Be Showcase Safe can be found here.
“We have worked to re-envision our Showcase customer experience to make health and safety our main focus,” said Mark Malinowski, Showcase’s vice president of global marketing. “Our Be Showcase Safe program strongly encourages our customers to work together with our employees and follow these new health and safety protocols as we are working toward the same goal – a safe and fun movie-going experience!”
Showcase’s New York City cinemas, like others in that chain and at other circuits domestically and around the world, will be offering private cinema rentals of both new and classic titles, an increasingly popular practice since the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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