Burnham-On-Sea’s Ritz Cinema will be re-opening for customers on Monday May 17th, its owners have announced this week despite suffering a £30,000 setback.
Owners Pat and Beryl Scott say they are looking forward to safely welcoming back local film fans – a number of Covid safety measures will be in place to ensure staff and customers are kept safe.
It comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson has given cinemas across the UK the go-ahead to re-open from May 17th as part of the phased lockdown easing.
Burnham-On-Sea.com reported here in January that The British Film Institute had awarded £47,142 to Burnham’s Ritz Cinema from its culture recovery fund and safety grant fund.
But, while that funding boost was very welcome, Pat Scott told Burnham-On-Sea.com this week that the cinema has had a large unplanned bill to pay.
He says: “Unfortunately, we’ve suffered a setback after finding that one of our £30,000 digital projectors urgently needs to be replaced.”
“This is a big blow – it was an 11 year-old projector and we can’t get the parts to repair it, so we are having to replace it with a new one, which is costly.”
Pat adds: “Putting that aside, we are really looking forward to re-opening again and seeing customers back in the cinema.”
“We hope to have some great films to screen in our first weeks.”
He added: “We are doing everything we can to make the cinema as safe as possible so customers have the confidence to come back to the cinema and support us during these difficult times. There will be social distancing, sanitiser and cleaning measures in place.”
All cinemas in England have been closed since December 31st 2020 with the country in lockdown, under which indoor gatherings of any size are not permitted, and only essential commercial premises are allowed to operate.
