CARMEL

Anthony Seda checks the locked doors of the Carmel Movieplex 8 last week shortly after management walked away without notifying anyone of its closing. One of Putnam’s two motion picture theaters has gone dark.

Carmel Movieplex 8, located at the Shop Rite Plaza, shut its doors for the final time last week after the theater’s management, Cinema North, headquartered in Rutland, VT, declared bankruptcy and closed all properties as well as its corporate offices.

Wing Biddle, president and CEO of Erstadt-Biddle Properties of Connecticut, which owns and operates the shopping plaza off Route 52 at the Carmel-Kent line, told the COURIER Cinema North owned and operated nine theaters in northern New York and Vermont: “The Putnam site was the company’s most southern location.”

Biddle took possession of the theater last Thursday and placed signs on the property indicating the theater was closed. Biddle said he hoped to find another theater group to operate the movie house: “My intention it to reopen a theater as quickly as possible.”

Biddle said, “Carmel wants a theater. I even received a call from Supervisor Kenneth Schmitt offering the town’s help and assistance.”

Biddle called it “extremely unfortunate” that the theater had closed. “Putnam County deserves more than one theater,” he said.

The only other movie house currently operating in the county is a threescreen theater in the rear of the Value Village Store off Route 22 in Southeast.

Biddle said whoever takes over the operation of the Carmel Theater will be instructed to operate the business in a more professional manner than Cinema North did.

“It became the youth center of Carmel. We attempted to work with the company to change the theater’s image but once a place gets a reputation of a teenage hang-out, it becomes very difficult to change,” said Biddle.

Anthony Seda, president of Seda Investigations, a company that provides security for the shopping center, was first to receive notification of the closure: “My security officer was informed by theater management not to report for work, since the theater had closed permanently.”

Seda also blamed the theater’s demise to “kids hanging out,” which prevented adults from visiting the movie house: “Parents dropped off their kids, who were unsupervised. Adults refused to put up with the teenagers’ nonsense and the theater continued to lose business.”

Reaction to the closure was mixed. While shopping at the plaza last Thursday, a woman who identified herself as Kathy Summers of Kent said she wasn’t surprised that the movie theater closed: “The films were current but the theater itself often resembled a pigsty, with kids running around the place, ushers non-existent, the smell of burning popcorn everywhere, and filthy restrooms.”

Another shopper, Jane Larkin of Carmel, admitted not going to the theater that often but, “when my husband and I were in the mood to watch a movie on a big screen we visited the theater because of its location. The interior needed a good cleaning but it was still better than having to travel to Danbury, Jefferson Valley, or Fishkill.”

—Eric Gross