Reading owners urged to front up to public
The Chamber of Commerce in Wellington wants the family who own the Reading Cinemas to come to the capital to front up to the Wellington public.
“We need to meet the Readings [executives]. It’s a few thousand dollars to fly down to NZ and see your potential investment. We’re asking for them to drop by and meet the neighbours, so to speak,” Arcus said.
“Intermediaries aren’t the way we do business here in Wellington. The city needs to eyeball the family and ask them about their commitment to the city and their business community.”
The multi-millionaire US owners of Reading Cinemas – sisters Ellen and Margaret Cotter – flew to
Wellington to meet secretly with new mayor
Tory Whanau, just days after she was sworn into office after the October election.
Arcus says the
Cotters should appear at a public hearing run by councillors who can all interrogate them along with questions from ratepayers.
“Given the extraordinary deal the city proposes to give the Reading family we believe they should appear in public and answer questions from councillors of all stripes and to thank the people of the city for their unusual largesse to them.
“Apart from good manners when you receive an overwhelming gift, it is also important the people of Wellington understand what plans the [Cotters] have and what they commitment to the city is.”
The controversial $32 million deal would mean the cash-strapped Wellington City Council buy a piece of land under the vacant Reading Cinemas complex on Courtenay Place and lease it back to Reading for 21 years or until the land is sold.
Reading would then use funds from the sale to renovate the largely derelict building, which abruptly shut in 2019 after sustaining damage during the Kaikōura quake three years earlier.
The chamber expressed concern that the city’s legacy of benefiting from generous donors – from the Norwood and Todd families to Sir Mark Dunajtschik – had been reversed and that instead, there was an expectation that Wellington “pay the wealthy families to take interest in the city”.
The chamber’s statement said it was deeply concerning that an offer to help the city over the Reading deal by Dunajtschik was rejected. “It will go down as a dark day for the city,” the statement said.
Reading is a Nasdaq-listed entertainment and real estate company operates multiplexes throughout the US, Australia and New Zealand.