Malco movie theaters close due to coronavirus
Malco is temporarily closing all its movie theaters, in response to the health threat of the coronavirus.
Malco Theatres Inc. President and Chief Operating Officer David Tashie said the shutdown — which began after March 17's final shows — is open-ended, with the theaters unlikely to reopen until public health officials report that the spread of the infectious virus has been abated.
"It's new territory, we've never been through anything like this before," Tashie said. "Nobody has."
Malco operates 37 cinemas in six states: Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Louisiana. The shutdown affects the entire Malco circuit — even the Summer Quartet Drive-in, where "social distancing" among customers is presumably not a challenge.
The unprecedented move was "a hard decision," Tashie said, because of its effects on employees and company tradition. Malco employs more than 1,000 workers today, full-time and parttime. Although their hours will be reduced, many workers will continue to be employed, he said, as maintenance and cleaning continues at the theaters.
"The health and safety of our guests and employees is of the highest importance," Tashie said in a statement. "We will continue closely monitoring the situation and when given clearance, be ready to resume normal operations."
A statement from Malco attributed the closure to the company's desire to be "in compliance with local, state and federal directives concerning COVID-19."
Tashie said business at Malco had remained brisk during the coronavirus crisis, although March 13 the company instituted a policy of selling no more than 50% of the seats in an auditorium, to reduce contact among patrons.
In addition, Malco last week dropped late-night (9 p.m. or so) screenings.
Malco's decision puts the Memphisbased, 105-year-old cinema chain in line with AMC, Regal and other major movie chains around the country, which this week began to close their doors, in keeping with health officials' recommendations or mandates about reducing crowds.
Although moviegoing is no longer a regularly scheduled activity for most Americans, as it was in decades past (in 1946, 57% of Americans went to the movies once a week, according to the Motion Picture Association), any disruption of the movie exhibition business is extremely rare.
Movie theaters in cities generally operate 365 days a year. In Memphis, they remained open during ice storms and snowstorms, after 9/11 and after the 2012 movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado.
This time, however, the closures seemed inevitable, especially once the major studios began pulling their new movies off the release calendar, to hold them for a time when large crowds can be encouraged to return to the theater.
Adding insult to injury, the pandemic has arrived at a time when movie theaters have been redesigned to make the experience more social, with assigned seating, food delivery to auditoriums, and even lobby bars and restaurants, as at Malco's new Powerhouse location Downtown.
Updates regarding Malco's closing will be posted on the malco.com website and via the company's social media accounts.