writings       links       about me

When my family first moved to Encinitas in 1974, there was no local theater that provided first-run, big-studio Hollywood films. If you wanted that, you had two options. 

You could drive down to Flower Hill Cinemas in Del Mar, or you could go to what at the time was known as the "Mann" theaters up in Carlsbad. Both were adequate alternatives, but required a bit of a drive. The Carlsbad theater tended to have new releases first - as I recall, this is where I first saw "Star Wars", way back in 1977.

Encinitas had a theater, but even by 1974 it was no longer showing first-run movies. The La Paloma at the time was the equivalent of an independent TV station that ran programs in syndication; you'd get your big-name pictures there, but it would be several months after the film was released.

What doomed the La Paloma to this fate was this; it was an old-style movie house, with one screen and two floors - main and balcony. You know, the kind you can still find in cities like Berkeley and Boston where independent/art films still draw enough of a crowd to make these establishments somewhat economically viable (and where local building restrictions are so unyielding that the owners have no option to change them into something else). And this is what the La Paloma gets used for today.

It took until 1982 for Encinitas to finally get its own first-run theater. A company that I'd never heard of until then, AMC, put a six-screen theater into what could have been described as "Weigand Plaza Two", a name the mall didn't keep for long. It was built on the old Weigand property that ran along El Camino Real. They grew beans and raised turkeys there for decades. I'm pretty sure I went to school with one of their kids, a girl named Marsi.

At any rate, the Weigands sold the property sometime in the late 1970s and development followed starting in the 1980s. While money was tight and interest rates high back then (something that thankfully slowed the development of Encinitas somewhat until 1980) this was obviously going to be prime commercial property and as such was developed fairly quickly.

Plaza One went up first in my freshman year of high school. I don't remember much of what they had in here, save that the building that now houses Baja Fresh had been a bank for many years before that, and surprisingly enough, for the first year of its existence, had been a music store. Guitars, horns, violins, pianos, the whole deal - the "old school" full-service music store that I haven't seen an example of for the last thirty years. It didn't last long. Also, there was "Al Aldray's 3-D Photo" (why I can remember his name I have no idea - it's taking up memory space that I need for more useful things). But 3-D photo was great, they sold boomboxes (good ones), consumer electronics of all types, and had access to a fantastic photo developing house - they did all of the photos of my teenage years and after and did a fantastic job on every single batch, even given my very strange fetish for super-high speed color film (usually 1200ASA) something I'm not used to from anyone else. They provided good product and good service and so of course are long gone.

But Weigand Plaza Two was paydirt for us teenage residents of Encintas, because we got three things we couldn't live without:

1. The AMC Theater.
2. An arcade (housed in a building that was razed - it sat about fifty feet north of the UNOCAL station that's there now - another building that's on the chopping block, by the way, but one I feel a lot less sentimental about). The arcade was great.
3. Burger King!

Now, I'm not much of a moviegoer these days. I usually watch them at home, because people have forgotten how to behave in public and routinely act like total jerks in need of a savage beating when they attend theaters these days. But I used to - I went into college with the intent (and the classroom schedule) to be a theater arts major as I wanted to work in TV or movies.

One quarter of UC Santa Cruz's theater depatment was enough - in fact, in all honesty, the first week was enough. I have never met a higher concentration of pretentious jerks in my life, and I spent most of my working career, both before and after college, working with pretentious jerks in the music industry. I know about jerks, and have dealt successfully with enough of them, but the UCSC Theater program was ridiculous. I gave up on TV. I have a degree in psychology.

But I used to watch movies, quite a few of them, and of the amount of time I have spent in my life in theaters, probably 80% of that had been spent inside the AMC Encinitas. The establishment expanded to 8 screens in 1991. They always had a few cool videogames in there as well, reminded me of our old arcade that had been in the same mall for a couple of years (I believe it was torn down in 1985-86) The last film I saw there was the first part of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy back in 2001 and the place was packed.

CORRECTION:  As my sister reminded me, the last movie I saw there was NOT the first Lord of the Rings film, but the Powerpuff Girls movie in 2002.  And if you think there's something weird about a grown man who likes the Powerpuff Girls cartoons, well, you're probably right.

Well, it's done for now.

Back in late 2005, Weingarten Realty Investors, of Houston, Texas - the current owners of the property, announced that the lease was up on December 31 and submitted a proposal that called for razing the theater and the two adjacent restaurants and replacing them with spaces for two large stores. With changes, this plan was approved. 

AMC did not want to go:

"It is a theater we want to keep open," said Melanie Dahl, a spokeswoman from AMC's headquarters in Kansas City, Mo. "This is a place we want to be, and we have no announcement to make at this time."

And I just have to take a moment to pause and ask - what the hell is it going to take to get Encinitas politicians to stop voting to have what little history we had razed to the ground? Solana Lumber (bulldozed for a train station and luxury houses) and Miracles Cafe (bulldozed for an enormous office building) and so much more I could write a book if I thought it was a good idea to do so. Don't even get me started on the atrocity that's been visited on my former high school. Compared to those, this one doesn't even bother me that much, save for that once again, Encinitas has NO major movie outlet. 

At any rate, it's not that I didn't believe it would happen, I just couldn't imagine that it could. But the theater ceased operations on January 28, 2007.

I couldn't believe it. We were going to lose our theater for a Staples? My God, this is the height of short-sightedness in so many ways - if Staples wants a vision of their future, they ought to have had a look at the Office Depot that is literally just half a mile up the road from them. I am, in all honesty, not sure why that location is still open. They are next to one of the busiest stores in the entire area, the Encinitas Target, and yet they can't get a single customer in the door. The very few times I've been in that location, it's been empty. And this Staples will be in a worse location with less parking and no "magnet" tenant. Did you do any market research, Staples guys? Any due diligence? Send a guy to check out the area and ask some questions? If you did, I recommend another company next time. I know you didn't do most, if any, of these things, because you chose to put a Staples in a site where it will do badly.

They are going to lose money hand over fist, and I couldn't be happier.

I suspect this move will also hurt the business of Sushi House, as their main source of business seemed to be people both coming to and leaving from the theater. It's not going to hurt Beverages and More - they are now probably the highest traffic generator in the mall now that the theater is gone. I know it's not the Christian bookstore, which I walk by every time I go to BevMo. 

The reason I'm writing this now is that, over the July Fourth weekend, they tore the theater down. It didn't hurt quite as badly as seeing Miracles get torn down, but it was a kick in the chest, no question.

So now Encinitas will, very shortly, have two warehouse-sized office supply stores and no theater. Nice going, jerks.

Here's some pics of the demolished theater.  Those of you who are from, or live in, Encinitas will be shocked.

Wasn't there something to the right of that TJ Maxx?

Well, it looks as though there is a large parcel of gravel and a piece of road.

End of the road.

Yep, it's the former road outside the theater and a bunch of smashed foundation.  The telephone pole in the back of this shot, right next to the security trailer, was climbed up by my friend Mike.  He was extremely intoxicated and frankly this scared the shit out of me.  Power poles aren't real safe.  This was our theater.

The Burger King is still there, as is the gas station, although apparently the gas station will be smashed flat soon.

Yay.  Coming soon.

What you see when you're driving south.  I did not cut out the AMC logo, they spray-painted it.

And, to reward you for making it to the end of this, a monument to the early eighties rock gods.  This section of sidewalk was dated 1983, and is on the long sidewalk running along Mountain Vista, from my walk from the old theater site to my house, which is about a mile and a half.

Site design and administration by Apocalypse Web Designs, NLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of kRAPcO Industries, NLC
Love it? Like it? Approve? Tell me! 
all content © 2011