Atlantic Highlands Cinema Another Casualty of the Pandemic

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The Atlantic Highlands Cinema has been showing movies since the 1920s but its current owners couldn’t keep the business going during the pandemic. The theater on First Avenue closed its doors for good Nov. 15. File Photo

By Eileen Moon

ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – A call to the movie line at Atlantic Highlands Cinema was still being answered by a cheery recorded voice announcing showings for “The War with Grandpa,” “Come Away” and “Let Him Go” last Monday, but the writing was already on the wall for the future of this near-century old local dream palace.

After closing following Gov. Phil Murphy’s shutdown order due to the pandemic March 15, theater owners Fred and Mickey Rast invested in antimicrobial treatments and other innovations to make the movie house as safe as possible for theatergoers during the pandemic. 

They re-opened Oct. 15 in accordance with the seating capacity limits imposed as a result of the emergency.

Despite their efforts, movie theater patrons didn’t return.

On Saturday, Nov. 14, Fred Rast announced on Facebook that the venue at 82 First Ave. where thousands of area residents have been entertained, inspired and transported by the dreams and visions on the big screen would close for good the next day.

“We are sad to announce the official closing of Atlantic Cinemas,” wrote Rast, a lifelong resident and past mayor of Atlantic Highlands. “We are closing our family owned business on November 15th, 2020 after 99 years of supporting our community. 

“We are closing due to greedy film companies, Netflix and others showing films too early or sometimes immediately after release, regulations and fees imposed by the state of New Jersey, including $15 an hour minimum wage and mandatory vacation pay, added into closing for over 7 months imposed by the New Jersey Governor due to Coronavirus, a small, individually owned business like ourselves, simply cannot survive. 

“We have spent tens of thousands of dollars just to keep theater equipment and buildings maintained, just to spend thousands more to just be open between October 15th and November 15th. Unfortunately, we have spent almost another $10,000 to pay expenses such as, insurance, salaries, property taxes, mortgage and utilities for less than $1000 coming into the theater for business.

“It causes my wife and I great pain to close after serving the community for so many years,” Rast continued. “It has become a staple in our town, but unfortunately we are left with no choice.” 

The news was greeted with dismay by hundreds of Two River residents with fond memories of the movie house whose location in the center of town made it a perfect destination for dinner-and-a-movie nights the theater offered in collaboration with several Atlantic Highlands restaurants.

But keeping a family-owned theater going in an era of online streaming and mega-movie houses offering reclining seats and even dinner service was increasingly a difficult proposition.

As he noted in his announcement, Rast also places blame on what he sees as restrictive regulations on small businesses and a rising minimum wage.

Last June, Rast listed the movie theater building and an adjacent property they own for sale, saying at the time that he and his wife, Mickey, were interested in selling the building so they could retire, but he hoped to lease the movie theater back from the buyers of the property and continue to operate it. The two are Atlantic Highlands natives who celebrated their 50th anniversary at St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church on Center Avenue in 2017, the same church in which they were married.

Now 76, Rast began his association with the theater as a teenager, working as an usher when he was 16.

The building the theater occupies once housed a garage, which, according to some tales, served as a transit point for illegal shipments of alcohol during the local rum-running days of prohibition in the 1930s.

But the theater itself has been showing films since around 1920.

Former Two River Times movie critic Joan Ellis, a Middletown native who is now 89, remembers going to see films there with her parents. 

At that time, it was a very local attraction, she recalled. People who lived on the other side of the Oceanic Bridge weren’t likely to come that far to see a film.

“People didn’t know where Atlantic Highlands was,” she said. “I never understood that.”

But by the time she was old enough to go to movies on her own, “they started to get wonderful movies. It became the place we all snuck off to, to see movies we couldn’t see in Red Bank. I used to go to the movies all the time, all the time,” she recalled.

Her visits to the theater inspired a lifelong passion for cinema that evolved into a long career as an award-winning film critic for numerous publications across the country. 

She retired from regularly writing movie reviews for The Two River Times in 2019, but her love of films – and the little local theater that inspired her – remains. Its closing, she said, “is very sad news.”

When the theater’s previous owner, Leonard (Lenny) Edwards, bought the business in 1961, it had only 335 seats. Eventually, the movie house expanded to five screens.

Rast, who became a detective and security specialist who owned his own detective agency, became a business partner with Lenny Edwards in 1996. He and Mickey, a real estate agent, purchased the business entirely when Edwards, a well-loved figure in town, died in 2012 at the age of 88. 

Under their ownership, the theater upgraded to the technology necessary to accommodate screening films in the digital age and made other improvements, including the addition of a theater space for live performances and a new marquee.

But their ability to manage the business challenges of the 21st century could not overcome the impact of the pandemic.

While Rast has received some calls from people hoping to find a way to save the theater, “Talk is cheap,” he said.

“We’re going to miss it, too. It meant a lot. We gave it a good shot.”

The article originally appeared in the November 19 – 25, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.