P A R A M O U N T
PULSE BEAT
May 2014
Serving the Community Since 1990
www.paramountchamber.com
The Return of the Great Outdoor Screens – Paramount Drive-In Re-Opens
After a 22-year “intermission,” Paramount Drive-In Theatres, with two 75-foot screens, opened in April, joining its neighboring Bianchi Stadium 11 Theatres. Capacity for each screen is just over 400 cars. Dolby Digital sound flows through your FM car radio. The environment is clean, safe, and friendly. Admission prices are also friendly – family friendly. Adults, $9; children 5-8, $3; kids under 5, free. And that gets you a double feature! “We always knew, once we opened the indoor theaters in 1998, that the drive-in could come back,” said Darren Kurkowski, vice president of operations for the theater and swap meet. “One of the things we were waiting on was technology,” he continued. “In the old days, having the strip of film in front of the projector’s bulb reduced the amount of light going to the screen, and that affected the image. Now it’s digital, and there’s no film buffer, so you can put a lot more light on the screen. It makes a huge difference.” Kurkowski noted that four other drive-ins are still open within a 50-mile range of Paramount, but each is quite a distance away. So competition is negligible. Research also revealed that those theaters have been experiencing a substantial upturn in weekend business over the last few years. “Families were starting to pack the houses again,” he said. “So the timing was right, and these are our roots, where we started in 1947.” Since the announcement was made to re-install the big screens, the Everything old is new again. feedback has been overwhelming, Kurkowski related. “When we put up At least that’s true for the Paramount entertainment scene. a Facebook page [www.facebook.com/ParamountDriveInTheatres] it exIn 1947, in the town of Clearwater (which later joined the adjacent vil- ploded. We had 40,000 views in two days.” lage of Hynes to become Paramount), the Roadium Drive-In opened near The debut, on Friday, April 18, was a hit, as well. “The turnout was great the corner of Paramount Blvd. and Rosecrans Ave. Rhodium is the name and our customers were very excited about being here,” Kurkowski said. of a chemical compound, and the play on that word for the vehicle-centric “We received a ton of compliments basically thanking us for bringing driveventure – Roadium – was the brainchild of the theater’s owner, Joseph Bi- ins back. Lots of folks were setting up lawn chairs outside their vehicles, anchi, a chemist from Brooklyn. opening up their hatchbacks, cranking up their stereos, kids were in their Bianchi had devised a process to vastly expand the amount of penicillin pajamas. It was a good time, and definitely a family atmosphere.” made for the pharmaceutical company he worked for back east. “He increased The Paramount Drive-In Theatres are located at 7770 Rosecrans Blvd.; their profit by $100,000, and they gave him a $5 raise,” recalled Bianchi’s son, 562-630-SHOW; www.paramountdrivein.com. Glenn. “He said, the heck with that, I’m going to California.” For coverage of another Paramount business icon, look inside this issue After a few years in business, and thanks to Joseph’s technical innova- for a story about Weber Metals and its recent historical landmark status. tions, the Roadium became one of the first “twin” theaters in the country. “Drive-ins could have 1,000 spaces, so it was difficult to see the screen in the back,” Glenn Bianchi explained. By using prisms in the projection booth, Joseph was able to show the same film on two different screens. “He split the difference so all the customers had good seats.” With the onslaught of television in the 1950s, movies encountered stiff competition that led to declining attendance. While the Roadium soldiered on through the years, the Paramount Swap Meet, which opened in 1955 and developed into the first seven-day-a-week operation of its kind in California, eventually became the main focus of the property. In 1992, the theater, by then called the Paramount Twin, turned off its projector for the last time and the big screens came down the next year. But now, with an entertainment landscape that is exceptionally diverse, in a world chockfull of channels and websites and content providers, where you can watch movies on your cellphone, Glen Bianchi has taken a step back in order to move forward. He has brought back the drive-in theater in all its retro glory. Paramount Chamber of Commerce
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15357 Paramount Boulevard, Paramount, CA 90723
What’s inside Ask The Expert..........................10 Business Card Directory.............12 Business Corner.........................11 Cityscape..................................15
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