Some Sacramento-area movie theaters open as COVID-19 rules ease. Which could be next?
You still can’t dine inside a restaurant or watch a movie at an indoor theater in Sacramento.
But if you’re willing to drive 40 minutes or so in the right direction, you can do both.
California last week unveiled its new color-coded system, breaking down counties’ COVID-19 risk levels into four tiers. From least to most restrictive, the tiers are yellow, orange, red and purple.
In purple counties where coronavirus activity is considered “widespread,” including Sacramento, most of its immediate neighbors and about 30 others making up most of California’s population, indoor movie theaters aren’t permitted to open at all.
In red counties, they may open but must restrict capacity in each auditorium to 25% of their normal seating capacity or 100 people, whichever is lower. In orange counties, the restriction is the lowest of 50% normal capacity or 200 people. For yellow counties, the restriction is 50% of the maximum usual capacity, even if that’s more than 200 people.
Nine counties are red, with San Diego and San Francisco the most populous among those. Another nine, all of them sparsely populated ones in the northern reaches of the state or the Sierra foothills, are orange. Just two of the state’s tiniest counties, Alpine and Modoc, are currently yellow.
Counties must remain in their tier at least three weeks before they can be promoted based on improving COVID-19 metrics. So it may be a while before the vast majority of California’s movie theaters can fill more than a quarter of their seats.
Here’s the status on movie theaters in the Sacramento region, including which ones are already open, what new rules are in place to maintain social distancing and which might reopen next.
El Dorado County: Now playing
About 25 miles east of Sacramento along Highway 50, neighboring El Dorado County is one stage better than the rest of the capital region, in the red tier, due to relatively low coronavirus numbers.
In the new system, that means indoor dine-in restaurants and movie theaters in El Dorado both have the state’s OK to open with modifications and limited capacity.
Local restaurants have rejoined the indoor eating scene at varying speeds, with many customers still appearing to prefer patio dining for now in El Dorado, The Bee observed earlier this week.
Things seem to be moving a bit quicker at the movies.
The nation’s second-largest theater chain, Regal Cinemas last month began reopening theaters from COVID-19 shutdowns in select cities, a list that grew Wednesday to include its cineplexes in Placerville and El Dorado Hills.
Both opened just in time for Thursday’s wide cinematic release of “Tenet,” the latest action thriller from director Christopher Nolan, and ahead of the three-day Labor Day weekend. The 14-auditorium Regal El Dorado Hills listed about two dozen showtimes for “Tenet” each for Thursday and Friday, along with more than a dozen other screenings for four other films that were released last month. Eight-screen Regal Placerville showed “Tenet” 14 times Thursday.
The Regal Cinemas website says it’ll keep auditoriums limited to 50% capacity in states and cities that require it. It doesn’t specifically mention how it’s handling jurisdictions with tighter restrictions, but the company appears to be adhering to California’s guidelines in El Dorado: for showings at the El Dorado Hills theater, the online vendor isn’t allowing transactions that would push an auditorium past 25% full.
Moviegoers must wear face coverings while in the lobby and in auditoriums — unless they’re eating or drinking, according to the Regal website. Concession stands will remain open with a number of modifications, including every other cash register staying closed. You can still buy popcorn, but you can’t get a refill.
Regal Cinemas allows moviegoers to sit in groups, seated next to each other, but requires customers to maintain either two empty standard seats or one empty recliner seat between ticket-purchasing parties (there’s no buffer in the other direction, so guests can still be seated directly in front of or behind one another). There are also two-seat “social gap” spaces adjacent to each aisle seat in El Dorado Hills, allowing individual aisle recliners to remain available for solo ticket-buyers.
Additionally, a customer who buys a ticket and then experiences COVID-19 symptoms “may request a refund online,” the policy posted to Regal’s website continues.
At the El Dorado Hills location dozens of moviegoers bought advance tickets to see “Tenet” on opening day, the Regal website showed. Two evening showings and one matinee sold out their limited capacities by 1 p.m. Thursday. As of early the next morning, Friday’s 7:30 p.m. showing of “Tenet” on the IMAX screen — the biggest auditorium in the theater — sold out its available seating.
Placer County: Coming soon to a theater near you?
Placer County cineplexes are preparing to open as early as next week, though uncertainty regarding the county’s status within the new tier system makes that subject to change.
At the outset of the tier system, Placer found itself in the most-restrictive purple group, even though its numbers had recently been improving.
The day of the state’s announcement, Aug. 28, Placer County’s health office in an update said it “expect(s) to have news around movement to the ‘red’ tier and additional easing of restrictions around Sept. 8 if trends continue in the right direction.” The trends mentioned are low COVID-19 infection and test positivity rates, which the state health department uses to govern tier list placement.
The state plans to update the tier list weekly on Tuesdays, but says counties can’t advance to the next tier until they’ve been at their current level for at least three weeks. Placer officials are hopeful the state will make an exception to the three-week minimum because, according to its news release, the state health department “indicated to Placer County Public Health that data for the weeks ending in Aug. 11 and Aug. 18 were used to determine initial county placement into tiers,” and Sept. 8 would mark three weeks from then.
It’s still not yet clear whether that will happen, and some of that could hinge on the data.
But local movie theaters are preparing for the earliest possible scenario of getting the green light next week. Cinemark, the chain that operates the majority of the Sacramento area’s major movie theaters, says on its website that Roseville’s Century theater and the Blue Oaks Century Theatres in Rocklin currently plan to reopen for business Sept. 11.
Sacramento, Yolo, Yuba, Sutter: Curtains closed
The rest of Sacramento’s six-county region — Sacramento, Yolo, Yuba and Sutter counties — are in the purple tier with no immediate indication that they’ll advance to red this month.
Cinemark operates several theaters in those areas, including its Century-branded locations at the Downtown Commons, in the Arden Arcade, in Elk Grove, in Folsom and on Greenback Lane, along with Cinemark Yuba City. None have an estimated reopening on the company’s website.
Neither does Sacramento’s landmark Tower Theatre, and nor do Regal theaters in Davis and Natomas. All are awaiting further news on changes to the tier list before establishing timelines to reopen their auditoriums.
This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 8:25 AM.
