The shoddy appearance that this abandoned theatre presents there days is dreadful.

The City should pass an ordinance requiring the owner to keep a building like this in descent repair so that it outwardly at least is not a blight to the surrounding structures. It was suggested that perhaps a vacancy tax should be levied on owners of abandoned structures like these to get them motivated into re-building or re-leasing. A good idea.

In any case, this is not a building worthy of any historic interest, in spite of what some council members may think. It should be torn down eventually and replaced by something useful as part of a grander El Camino corridor study.

Why the city council wants to waste their time studying this structure is beyond me.

Perhaps the building should be left to stand as an ode to greedy capitalism, as Howard Crittenden kicked out a perfectly good, rent-paying tenant, immediately cut down its distinctive sign (and probably destroyed it afterwards) and left it to rot in the hopes that he could make a killing like all the other developers were doing during the previous council's reign with an office conversion. Instead, it merely ended up serving as a mighty appropriate symbol on an election “hit piece” that helped to oust the former majority. How wonderfully ironic.