Movie theatres waiting for action on National Popcorn Day

Imagine Lakeshore Cinemas in Lakeshore, Ont. on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022. (Chris Campbell/CTV Windsor)

Movie theatres across North America are observing Jan. 19, 2022 as National Popcorn Day, but those in Ontario are doing so with empty seats.

The province closed movie theatres along with other indoor venues to curb the spread of the Omicron variant on Jan. 5.

“We are hoping for good news,” says Manager of human resources and communications Jenn Eggett at Imagine Cinemas in Lakeshore. “We’ve navigated the ups and downs the last two years so we are ready to go.”

Egget says staff are eager to learn details of loosening restrictions, hopeful for clear guidance, “We are hoping to reopen as soon as possible,” she says.

The theatre will be opening its doors on Friday and Saturday between 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. to sell take out only concession stand food.

“Being closed again is pretty devastating to our business,” Eggett says. “We just really want to do something for the community.”

Eggett says it’s been challenging to operate between several closures and restrictions.

“The last devastating restriction was not being able to have or consume the concession items while you’re watching the movie, so that was really difficult to navigate.” Eggett explains.

“We’re hoping to give a little bit of the movie theatre experience to our loyal customers so we hope to see everyone Friday and Saturday.”

She says theatre staff gave away thousands of bags of popcorn last summer during a free popcorn event.

“We had huge car lineups coming in! The kids loved it. We had cosplayers come out and support. The community really loved it.” Eggett notes.

“Last summer was just to give back to our community and thank them, at this point now we’re almost going on two years of this. It’s been really crippling to the business so we’re hoping, like I said, the community has responded really well so far, so we’re really just asking for their support again this Friday and Saturday.”