About 10 emails over the past several days have made their way to the Menlo Park City Council’s inbox urging the council to save the Guild Theatre.
But is it under threat?
Judy Adams, a champion for the theater’s preservation, has interpreted a notice on a poster on the theater’s ticket booth window to be a sign that the theater may be vulnerable to an Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit. Other longtime Menlo Park businesses, such as the Dutch Goose, have been sued under the law, she said.
The poster she’s referring to says that the facility has been inspected by a Certified Access Specialist, but doesn’t provide any additional information.
On Sept. 29, Ms. Adams posted on change.org, an advocacy website, that the theater may be on a deadline to make remedies to accessibility problems or face litigation. She said in an interview she thinks the problem has to do with the small bathrooms that may not be wheelchair accessible and noted that there have been no building permits requested to make such changes.
But when the Almanac went to investigate the claims, all sources assured us that things at the theater are fine — or, if there are problems, they are being addressed.
Theatre Manager Craig Barclift told the Almanac: “I have no knowledge of any ADA issues or complaints,” he said. “Everything’s A-OK at the Guild.”
“I think the community loves the Guild and they have their worries, but as far as I know, everything is just fine,” he added.
Theater owner Howard Crittenden declined to comment on the ADA poster or provide further information about the theater’s status. “The subject is a private and personal matter,” he wrote in an email.
The man who inspected the theater, Bassam Altwal, said that while specific matters about his inspection of the Guild Theatre are confidential, he noted he usually does such inspections for either the tenant or the landlord, not potential litigants. The poster on the ticket booth, he said, is required to be visible for 120 days, but only says that an inspection was done there.
The only thing you know from the certificate, he said, is that if the building is not compliant, then the problem is being worked on.
If there are accessibility problems with the theater under the Americans with Disabilities Act, there may be other deadlines associated with remedying it, but that’s a confidential matter, he said.
Other theater updates
Many wonder if the theater is showing signs of winding down. The 92-year-old theater is a single-screen venue that has seen better days. And in January 2016, the Almanac reported that the theater at 949 El Camino Real was on a month-to-month lease and the property was on the market for redevelopment.
Following that story, Ms. Adams has become the theater’s public champion. Over the past months, she has gathered more than 4,000 signatures, she reports, in favor of a petition calling for the theater’s renovation and preservation. She says she’s been collecting the signatures at farmers’ markets, film screenings and online at change.org.
Before Ms. Adams launched her campaign to save the theater, local group Imagine Menlo, which seeks to make Menlo Park “more vibrant,” hosted an online discussion in October 2015 about how to improve the theater.
Recommendations on how to revamp the theater came from about 30 people, who suggested the theater serve dinner and drinks or open its doors to private and community showings.
“Like everybody, I’d like to see the theater remade,” Mr. Crittenden said in a previous interview, from December 2016. “I think the best thing anyone can do is go to the movie theater and give them some business.”
He added that the theater’s small size makes it more resilient than the Park Theatre, also in Menlo Park and owned by Mr. Crittenden. That theater closed in 2002 and the site is being redeveloped.
