Regal Cinemas to reopen most Sacramento-area theaters after months of COVID closures
Regal Cinemas this month will reopen most of its Sacramento-area theaters that have been closed for the past year due to coronavirus restrictions, the company announced.
Regal’s El Dorado, Natomas Marketplace and United Artist Laguna Village theaters will reopen Friday, joining the Delta Shores & IMAX location, which resumed showings in late April, according to the Regal website.
Regal Auburn will reopen a week later on May 14. Regal Davis, Regal Placerville and Regal UA Olympus Pointe in Roseville are all set to reopen May 21.
With those openings, all local Regal theaters except the UA screens located inside Arden Fair mall and Sunrise Mall will be back up and running within the next three weeks.
The announcement comes several weeks after Cinemark, the biggest movie-theater operator in the region, reopened most of its Century theaters across Sacramento and Placer counties. Other local movie complexes, including the historic Tower Theatre in Sacramento and the Palladio 16 cineplex in Folsom, reopened earlier this year.
Regal and Cinemark theaters have COVID-19 restrictions in place and have limited capacity in their auditoriums. Regal says on its website that auditoriums are increasing their “fresh air intake by 50%-100% above normal levels,” and that its reservation system will keep at least two empty seats between groups to maintain social distancing. Masks are required except when eating or drinking.
State health guidelines say indoor movie theaters are supposed to seat no more than 25% of their normal capacity in counties that are coded in the red or orange tier of virus risk, while theaters in yellow-tier counties can open up to 50%. Los Angeles and San Francisco advanced to the yellow tier this week, but most of the rest of California, including the entire Sacramento region, are in either the red or orange tier.
But California Gov. Gavin Newsom has also set June 15 as a target date to end tier restrictions and fully reopen the economy, provided there are no major COVID-19 setbacks, though mask mandates would still be in effect. This would end capacity limits, meaning it’s possible there could be packed houses in time for summer.
Movie theaters reopened very briefly last summer but had to close back down as COVID-19 cases surged. Many major film releases were either postponed or released instead for home viewing on streaming services.
