According to the International Motion Picture Almanacs on my shelf, the Amenia was almost the smallest US drive-in. The 1969 IMPA’s smallest listed capacity was the Bamberg (SC) Drive-In at 50 vehicles. It listed the Amenia at 54; the very specific number suggests a level of accuracy.
Then again,
a 2014 article in the Poughkeepsie Journal reminisced that it had room for just 44 cars. It also said there was a permanent old car on the grounds to accommodate walk-ins, and that it closed in 1983.
Of course, the world’s smallest is the Jericho Drive-In in the outback of Australia with space for just 34-36 cars.
The ABC (A for Australian) covered the Jericho’s digital conversion in October 2013. That story claimed the capacity is 36 cars. Maybe somebody added a speaker pole? :)
A few newspaper articles say the Randall opened in 1954. In some, the drive-in bills itself as “the world’s smallest,” which is an exaggeration though true in spirit.
Here are the notes from the International Motion Picture Almanacs on my shelf.
1955: not listed.
1956-66: owner H. B. Hudson, capacity 150 vehicles.
1969-76: 150.
1982: Osterberg, 200.
1984-88: Osterberg, 1 screen.
A May 2006 article in The Herald of Randolph VT said Scott Corse bought the Randall “11 years ago”. He rented it to Larry and Laurie Girard in 2006, and to Lorena Miller and family in 2012.
Adam Gerhard and Regina Franz leased the Randall from Corse in 2013. They raised enough money from the community for a down payment on a digital projector. The Herald wrote that Corse later told them he’d told them in February 2014 that the lease would not be renewed, and after the 2014 season, they kept the projector with them as they left. That led to the civil suit filed by the state of Vermont, as TomMc11 mentioned, though the defendants maintain their innocence and say the suit includes erroneous, unsubstantiated by any evidence, and in many cases outright false statements.
In May 2015, David and Tammy Tomaszewski, operators of the local indoor theater, took over the drive-in, renaming it the Bethel. The Herald wrote, “Tomaszewski confirmed this week that he and Scott Corse, who owns the drive-in, have signed a ‘yearly renewable lease’ for 20 years.”
The Bethel managed to get by with 35mm in 2015, then the Tomaszewskis started making serious improvements such as a new screen (replacing the original from 1954) and a digital projector. That email interview is in the Aug. 12, 2017 Valley News.
“(Reginald) Drowns built the Holiday Park Drive-In in 1950, and renamed it the Hi Way 5 Motel and Drive-In when he added six motel units 10 years later. It was the first of its kind in the country.”
The article goes on to say that Reginald screened every film in advance, spliced out racy scenes, and rigged the sound to go silent on cuss words. Wife Terri ran the motel and wouldn’t rent to anyone who didn’t look married or who drank beer.
Also, the Hi Way 5 must have been closed in the mid-80s. “People still talk about the reopening weekend of 1987. A couple from Connecticut named Ray and Elaine Herb took a chance on reviving the motel and drive-in, which had fallen into neglect after being shuttered for a few years.” Peter and Erika Trapp bought the Fairlee in 2003.
Now there are three drive-in / motels, thanks to the addition of a motel at the Sunset in Colchester VT, but the Fairlee was the first. I don’t know of any drive-in / motel combination that ever closed; if you do, please add a comment.
It appears that the Fairlee opened as the Holiday Park, then changed to the Hi-Way 5 in the early 1960s. Maybe at the same time the motel went up?
The 1952 and 1955-56 Theatre Catalogs list only the Holiday Park for Fairlee, owner “Reginald Drown, and Daytz Th. Ent.”, capacity 200 vehicles.
The 1952-54 editions of the Motion Picture Almanac also list the Holiday Park for Fairlee, owner Daytz Thea. Ent. Corp., no capacity noted. Other editions:
And despite all those changes, Seven Days wrote in 2013 that Ernest and Dorothy Handy bought the drive-in from a developer in 1948 and ran it until their retirement in 1979, when son Peter Handy took over ownership.
Also, the Sunset’s “Sunset in the News” page (pdf) is a photo of the Lake Champlain Weekly from July 2008, and it says that Peter added those two screens in 1980, then added the fourth in 1994.
Mallet’s Bay is listed separately on Cinema Treasures. It was open for a lot of the same years as the Sunset, which the Motion Picture Almanacs and Theatre Catalogs listed under Burlington. (The MPAs also eventually listed Mallets Bay under Burlington.)
Here’s what my Theatre Catalogs say about the Sunset.
1948-49: owner John Gardiner, Sunset Amusement Corp., capacity 300 vehicles. The Sunset was the only drive-in it listed for Vermont in that edition.
1949-50: John Gardiner, 300.
1952: D. Handy, and Daytz Th. Entr., 600.
1955-56: D. Handy, and Affiliated Ths. Corp., 600.
The reference books on my shelf don’t say much about Hathaway’s. The Theatre Catalogs from 1949-56 list F. Chase Hathaway as owner and a capacity of 400 vehicles.
The Motion Picture Almanacs from 1952-66 all list the owner as “Hathaway’s Drive-In Theatre, Inc.; Sylvan Leff” and a capacity of 338. The terse listings from 1969-76 continue with the 338 capacity, and from 1982-88, Hathaway’s was not listed, despite evidence elsewhere of continuous operation.
The International Motion Picture Almanacs on my shelf line up very well with the official history from my previous post. It also shows how slowly the IMPAs responded to changes that it continued showing the Milford as a single screen in its last national drive-in list in its 1988 edition.
The Milford Drive-In was built in 1958 and owned by a local group of people. Several area contractors contributed labor and materials during construction hoping for a share of future profits. The drive-in opened as a single screen theater with an 84 foot wooden frame screen, a combination concession, projection, and restroom building, a box office and a playground. During the 1960’s the drive-in was leased to and managed by another couple.
In 1969, the Scharmett family purchased the drive-in from the original owners and they have operated it continuously since then, except for three years during the 1970’s when the business was leased to Fall River Theater Corporation. Some of the many improvements the Scharmett’s have made over the years include: completely renovating the concession and restrooms, installing a new steel screen to replace the original wooden structure, building a new marquee, building a new box office, paving the entrance road, and being the first drive-in in New Hampshire to provide both AM and FM radio sound to its customers.
In 1984, the drive-in became a twin when additional acreage was cleared and a second screen was added. A second floor was constructed above the original building to provide room for a new projection room. At the same time the drive-in’s projection equipment was upgraded and continues to be upgraded to meet the growing technology demands of a modern operation.
Today, the Milford Drive-In is the only remaining drive-in theater in southern New Hampshire. Our patrons often drive from great distances just to enjoy the nostalgia, fun times, great food, and first run movies under the stars.
Today’s Laconia Daily Sun says that the deal to sell the Weirs has been dropped “after an initial study showed it to be in an archeologically important area where the potential for Native American artifacts could increase the costs of development. … If no buyer emerges, Baldi said there is even a chance she could re-open the drive-in next summer.”
On the Weirs Facebook page, management posted, “To my eye, this just looks like part of a larger negotiation process. How it will actually end is still unclear.”
Patricia Baldi said in a 2015 interview that the drive-in had been in the family for 40 years, and that hers was only the second family to own it. Let me turn to the Theatre Catalogs and Motion Picture Almanacs on my shelf to see what they say about the Weirs.
First, the Theatre Catalogs,
1949-50: not listed.
1952: owner H. Gaudet, capacity 500 vehicles.
1955-56: H. Gaudet and Affiliated Ths. Corp., 500.
One more note – anyone interested in the history of the Saco should check out Camille M. Smalley’s 2014 book, The Saco Drive-In: Cinema Under the Maine Sky. It’s available in ebook and dead-tree versions at the usual places.
Mike is right that I’ve been going through so many of these that I started thinking that everyone knew all the abbreviations and notes of these books. My apologies, and thanks to DI54 for pitching in. The cryptic abbreviations (other than IMPA) are what appeared in the books, which provided different levels of detail in different yearly editions.
The numbers at the end are vehicle capacity. Some of them could get very specific, since a drive-in owner knew exactly how many in-car speakers he had to maintain. But the first “75-150” in the 1953-54 edition of the Motion Picture Almanac (not International yet) looked like a hand-altered “75-” added to a previously laid-out 150. Out of hundreds of drive-ins, there were probably fewer than a dozen hyphenated ranges listed. I’d say that it was surprising that this uncertain number hung on for two decades, but inertia was a powerful force for those Almanac folks. As DI54 implies, these references are informative but not definitive.
On Google Maps, Pride’s Corner is marked at the intersection of Bridgton Road (US 302) and Brook Street just southeast of the drive-in. Wikipedia says there was a Prides Corner elementary school, closed May 2012, at that intersection.
That was the elder John Tevanian, who bought the Bridgton in 1971. His son, also John Tevanian, took over in 1996. He rebuilt the concession stand / projection booth in 2013 and installed digital projectors in time for the 2014 season.
A 2012 article in the Press Herald said that Doug Corson sold the Skowhegan to Donald C. Brown Jr. that year. It also said that Lockwood & Gordon Co. of Boston built the drive-in in 1954.
In January 2017, it posted to its Fundrazr page, “We’d like to thank all of the patrons of the Skowhegan Drive-In who helped us go digital. We didn’t get the full amount, but at least the amount we raised helped with the installation costs.”
Steve Ginn’s YouTube video has the full history of the Bangor. It opened on June 7, 1950.
The video claims that “(b)y the late 50’s it was an ‘adult’” theater, but more burlesque than porn. From the ads shown, this was just an occasional thing. A 1955 newspaper ad showed a nudist colony movie; a 1960 ad showed a stripper movie at midnight, and plenty of others had titles that sounded more lascivious than the movies really were.
Okay, there’s one 1970 newspaper ad with softcore porn. And one from 1974 with an X-rated second feature. But in between, there are plenty of multiplex-worthy movies. Based on the newspapers I checked separately, there were several full-time X-rated drive-ins in the area, but the Bangor wasn’t one of them.
A storm blew down the original screen on Jan. 8, 1978. It was replaced that year by the two screens that survive today.
AM Radio sound was added before the 1985 season, which is odd because the Bangor’s final night was July 23, 1985. By noon on the 25th, every speaker had been removed. The eight-screen Bangor Mall Cinemas, owned by the same company as the drive-in, opened on the 26th.
With the 2015 revival, capacity is about 250 for Screen One, about 160 for Screen Two.
BTW, the IMPA continued listing the Bangor Twin through its 1988 edition. Those guys sure were slow on the uptake sometimes!
A Times & Transcript article, copied into notes on a 2008 petition at GoPetition.com, said that then-owner Gilles LeBlanc’s father opened the Neptune in 1964, but Gilles was closing it and putting it up for sale. It didn’t mention the earlier closing but said “the drive-in started to fall on hard times in the 1980s”.
The Globe and Mail reported that in 2010, “a local business person bought the property and approached (Jeff) Coates with a suggestion to lease the drive-in business. After discussing the opportunity with (Robert) Farquharson, the duo decided to team up and leased the theatre in 2010.
“After a lapse of four years, the drive-in opened for a 17-week period in the summer of the same year.”
The Neptune’s web site was active in the summer of 2010, so we know it had been revived by then. The site had a note in June 2013 that the drive-in had gone digital.
The Open Air Cinema blog posted in 2009 that the Sussex opened in 1967, founded by Gerald Alexander and his family. They sold to Tom Boudreau, Paul Galloway and Randy Defazio in 2008.
For whatever reason, the Sussex never appeared in the IMPAs. That happens sometimes.
Owner Tom Boudreau told the Telegraph-Journal in May 2017 that the Sussex had never shut down and had been open for “50+ years.” He also said the drive-in’s capacity was “around 450,” reached twice in 2016.
According to the International Motion Picture Almanacs on my shelf, the Amenia was almost the smallest US drive-in. The 1969 IMPA’s smallest listed capacity was the Bamberg (SC) Drive-In at 50 vehicles. It listed the Amenia at 54; the very specific number suggests a level of accuracy.
Then again, a 2014 article in the Poughkeepsie Journal reminisced that it had room for just 44 cars. It also said there was a permanent old car on the grounds to accommodate walk-ins, and that it closed in 1983.
Of course, the world’s smallest is the Jericho Drive-In in the outback of Australia with space for just 34-36 cars.
The ABC (A for Australian) covered the Jericho’s digital conversion in October 2013. That story claimed the capacity is 36 cars. Maybe somebody added a speaker pole? :)
A few newspaper articles say the Randall opened in 1954. In some, the drive-in bills itself as “the world’s smallest,” which is an exaggeration though true in spirit.
Here are the notes from the International Motion Picture Almanacs on my shelf.
1955: not listed.
1956-66: owner H. B. Hudson, capacity 150 vehicles.
1969-76: 150.
1982: Osterberg, 200.
1984-88: Osterberg, 1 screen.
A May 2006 article in The Herald of Randolph VT said Scott Corse bought the Randall “11 years ago”. He rented it to Larry and Laurie Girard in 2006, and to Lorena Miller and family in 2012.
Adam Gerhard and Regina Franz leased the Randall from Corse in 2013. They raised enough money from the community for a down payment on a digital projector. The Herald wrote that Corse later told them he’d told them in February 2014 that the lease would not be renewed, and after the 2014 season, they kept the projector with them as they left. That led to the civil suit filed by the state of Vermont, as TomMc11 mentioned, though the defendants maintain their innocence and say the suit includes erroneous, unsubstantiated by any evidence, and in many cases outright false statements.
In May 2015, David and Tammy Tomaszewski, operators of the local indoor theater, took over the drive-in, renaming it the Bethel. The Herald wrote, “Tomaszewski confirmed this week that he and Scott Corse, who owns the drive-in, have signed a ‘yearly renewable lease’ for 20 years.”
The Bethel managed to get by with 35mm in 2015, then the Tomaszewskis started making serious improvements such as a new screen (replacing the original from 1954) and a digital projector. That email interview is in the Aug. 12, 2017 Valley News.
Aha! The August 2015 issue of Southwest: The Magazine says my guesses were on target.
“(Reginald) Drowns built the Holiday Park Drive-In in 1950, and renamed it the Hi Way 5 Motel and Drive-In when he added six motel units 10 years later. It was the first of its kind in the country.”
The article goes on to say that Reginald screened every film in advance, spliced out racy scenes, and rigged the sound to go silent on cuss words. Wife Terri ran the motel and wouldn’t rent to anyone who didn’t look married or who drank beer.
Also, the Hi Way 5 must have been closed in the mid-80s. “People still talk about the reopening weekend of 1987. A couple from Connecticut named Ray and Elaine Herb took a chance on reviving the motel and drive-in, which had fallen into neglect after being shuttered for a few years.” Peter and Erika Trapp bought the Fairlee in 2003.
Now there are three drive-in / motels, thanks to the addition of a motel at the Sunset in Colchester VT, but the Fairlee was the first. I don’t know of any drive-in / motel combination that ever closed; if you do, please add a comment.
It appears that the Fairlee opened as the Holiday Park, then changed to the Hi-Way 5 in the early 1960s. Maybe at the same time the motel went up?
The 1952 and 1955-56 Theatre Catalogs list only the Holiday Park for Fairlee, owner “Reginald Drown, and Daytz Th. Ent.”, capacity 200 vehicles.
The 1952-54 editions of the Motion Picture Almanac also list the Holiday Park for Fairlee, owner Daytz Thea. Ent. Corp., no capacity noted. Other editions:
1955: Holiday Park, R. E. Brown, no capacity.
1956-59: Holiday Park, R. E. Brown, 300.
1961-63: Holiday Park, Holiday Park, Inc., 300.
1966: Hi-Way 5, R. E. Drown, 400.
1969-76: Hi-Way 5, 400.
1982: Hi Way 5, Drown, 300.
1984-88: Hi Way 5, Drown, 1 screen.
And despite all those changes, Seven Days wrote in 2013 that Ernest and Dorothy Handy bought the drive-in from a developer in 1948 and ran it until their retirement in 1979, when son Peter Handy took over ownership.
Also, the Sunset’s “Sunset in the News” page (pdf) is a photo of the Lake Champlain Weekly from July 2008, and it says that Peter added those two screens in 1980, then added the fourth in 1994.
Mallet’s Bay is listed separately on Cinema Treasures. It was open for a lot of the same years as the Sunset, which the Motion Picture Almanacs and Theatre Catalogs listed under Burlington. (The MPAs also eventually listed Mallets Bay under Burlington.)
Here’s what my Theatre Catalogs say about the Sunset.
1948-49: owner John Gardiner, Sunset Amusement Corp., capacity 300 vehicles. The Sunset was the only drive-in it listed for Vermont in that edition.
1949-50: John Gardiner, 300.
1952: D. Handy, and Daytz Th. Entr., 600.
1955-56: D. Handy, and Affiliated Ths. Corp., 600.
===
And here are the details from my MPAs.
1952-53: Daytz Theas., 600.
1953-54: Daytz Theas., 416.
1955-59: H. Young, 416.
1961-66: Sunset Amuse. Corp., 416.
1969-76: 416.
1982: M. Jarvis, 500.
1984: P. Handy, 1 screen
1986-88: P. Handy, 3 screens.
The reference books on my shelf don’t say much about Hathaway’s. The Theatre Catalogs from 1949-56 list F. Chase Hathaway as owner and a capacity of 400 vehicles.
The Motion Picture Almanacs from 1952-66 all list the owner as “Hathaway’s Drive-In Theatre, Inc.; Sylvan Leff” and a capacity of 338. The terse listings from 1969-76 continue with the 338 capacity, and from 1982-88, Hathaway’s was not listed, despite evidence elsewhere of continuous operation.
The International Motion Picture Almanacs on my shelf line up very well with the official history from my previous post. It also shows how slowly the IMPAs responded to changes that it continued showing the Milford as a single screen in its last national drive-in list in its 1988 edition.
1959: not listed.
1961-63: owner/operator Sidney Goodridge, capacity 300.
1969-76: 300.
1982: Fall Riv., 300.
1984-88: R. Scharmett, 1 screen.
From the Milford’s About Us page:
The Milford Drive-In was built in 1958 and owned by a local group of people. Several area contractors contributed labor and materials during construction hoping for a share of future profits. The drive-in opened as a single screen theater with an 84 foot wooden frame screen, a combination concession, projection, and restroom building, a box office and a playground. During the 1960’s the drive-in was leased to and managed by another couple.
In 1969, the Scharmett family purchased the drive-in from the original owners and they have operated it continuously since then, except for three years during the 1970’s when the business was leased to Fall River Theater Corporation. Some of the many improvements the Scharmett’s have made over the years include: completely renovating the concession and restrooms, installing a new steel screen to replace the original wooden structure, building a new marquee, building a new box office, paving the entrance road, and being the first drive-in in New Hampshire to provide both AM and FM radio sound to its customers.
In 1984, the drive-in became a twin when additional acreage was cleared and a second screen was added. A second floor was constructed above the original building to provide room for a new projection room. At the same time the drive-in’s projection equipment was upgraded and continues to be upgraded to meet the growing technology demands of a modern operation.
Today, the Milford Drive-In is the only remaining drive-in theater in southern New Hampshire. Our patrons often drive from great distances just to enjoy the nostalgia, fun times, great food, and first run movies under the stars.
Today’s Laconia Daily Sun says that the deal to sell the Weirs has been dropped “after an initial study showed it to be in an archeologically important area where the potential for Native American artifacts could increase the costs of development. … If no buyer emerges, Baldi said there is even a chance she could re-open the drive-in next summer.”
On the Weirs Facebook page, management posted, “To my eye, this just looks like part of a larger negotiation process. How it will actually end is still unclear.”
Patricia Baldi said in a 2015 interview that the drive-in had been in the family for 40 years, and that hers was only the second family to own it. Let me turn to the Theatre Catalogs and Motion Picture Almanacs on my shelf to see what they say about the Weirs.
First, the Theatre Catalogs,
1949-50: not listed.
1952: owner H. Gaudet, capacity 500 vehicles.
1955-56: H. Gaudet and Affiliated Ths. Corp., 500.
Now, my MPAs,
1953-54: H. Goubet (sic), 350.
1955-63: Mrs. H. B. Gaudet, 350.
1969-76: 350.
1982-88: L. Baldi.
Looks like Ms. Baldi is correct.
One more note – anyone interested in the history of the Saco should check out Camille M. Smalley’s 2014 book, The Saco Drive-In: Cinema Under the Maine Sky. It’s available in ebook and dead-tree versions at the usual places.
Mike is right that I’ve been going through so many of these that I started thinking that everyone knew all the abbreviations and notes of these books. My apologies, and thanks to DI54 for pitching in. The cryptic abbreviations (other than IMPA) are what appeared in the books, which provided different levels of detail in different yearly editions.
The numbers at the end are vehicle capacity. Some of them could get very specific, since a drive-in owner knew exactly how many in-car speakers he had to maintain. But the first “75-150” in the 1953-54 edition of the Motion Picture Almanac (not International yet) looked like a hand-altered “75-” added to a previously laid-out 150. Out of hundreds of drive-ins, there were probably fewer than a dozen hyphenated ranges listed. I’d say that it was surprising that this uncertain number hung on for two decades, but inertia was a powerful force for those Almanac folks. As DI54 implies, these references are informative but not definitive.
Here’s what’s on my shelf:
*Theatre Catalogs
1948-50: Eugene Boragine, 300.
1952-56: A. C. O'Neill and Herbert Higgins, 300
*(I)MPAs
1953-54: E. Borazin; Higgins, 75-150.
1955-59: Higgins Circuit, 75-150.
1963: Madison Theas. Co., 75-150.
1969-76: 75-150.
1982: SBC Mgt. Corp., 600.
1984-88: SBC Mgt. Corp.
On Google Maps, Pride’s Corner is marked at the intersection of Bridgton Road (US 302) and Brook Street just southeast of the drive-in. Wikipedia says there was a Prides Corner elementary school, closed May 2012, at that intersection.
My old, fallible reference books point to the renaming from the Danville to the Auburn in the late 50s / early 60s.
Theatre Catalog data, as listed as the Danville:
1949-50: Collin and Wood, 550.
1952: Lockwood and Gordon Ent., 450.
1955-56: Lockwood and Gordon Ent., and Daytz Theatre Ent., 450.
(I)MPA data:
1953-59: Danville, 450, Daytz Theatre Ent.
1963: Aubury (sic), 450, Daytz Theatre Ent.
1969-76: Auburn, 475.
1982: 300, SBC Mgt. Corp.
1984-88: SBC Mgt. Corp.
Only a few hints from my IMPAs:
1957-59: not listed.
1963: 300, Daytz-Walter Esley.
1969-76: 300.
1982: 300, J. Tevanian.
1984-88: J. Tevanian.
That was the elder John Tevanian, who bought the Bridgton in 1971. His son, also John Tevanian, took over in 1996. He rebuilt the concession stand / projection booth in 2013 and installed digital projectors in time for the 2014 season.
The IMPAs don’t give us much to talk about.
1955-63: 368, Somerset Drive-In Corp.
1969-76: 368.
1982: 300, SBC Mgt. Corp.
1984-88: SBC Mgt. Corp.
A 2012 article in the Press Herald said that Doug Corson sold the Skowhegan to Donald C. Brown Jr. that year. It also said that Lockwood & Gordon Co. of Boston built the drive-in in 1954.
In January 2017, it posted to its Fundrazr page, “We’d like to thank all of the patrons of the Skowhegan Drive-In who helped us go digital. We didn’t get the full amount, but at least the amount we raised helped with the installation costs.”
The same photo is on TripAdvisor with the credit “Photo provided by management (May 2016)”. Really nice picture, though.
Steve Ginn’s YouTube video has the full history of the Bangor. It opened on June 7, 1950.
The video claims that “(b)y the late 50’s it was an ‘adult’” theater, but more burlesque than porn. From the ads shown, this was just an occasional thing. A 1955 newspaper ad showed a nudist colony movie; a 1960 ad showed a stripper movie at midnight, and plenty of others had titles that sounded more lascivious than the movies really were.
Okay, there’s one 1970 newspaper ad with softcore porn. And one from 1974 with an X-rated second feature. But in between, there are plenty of multiplex-worthy movies. Based on the newspapers I checked separately, there were several full-time X-rated drive-ins in the area, but the Bangor wasn’t one of them.
A storm blew down the original screen on Jan. 8, 1978. It was replaced that year by the two screens that survive today.
AM Radio sound was added before the 1985 season, which is odd because the Bangor’s final night was July 23, 1985. By noon on the 25th, every speaker had been removed. The eight-screen Bangor Mall Cinemas, owned by the same company as the drive-in, opened on the 26th.
With the 2015 revival, capacity is about 250 for Screen One, about 160 for Screen Two.
BTW, the IMPA continued listing the Bangor Twin through its 1988 edition. Those guys sure were slow on the uptake sometimes!
The very short IMPA report:
1969: not listed.
1972-76: capacity 300.
A 2013 Global News video with Coates said the “40 year old” Neptune opened “in the early 70s,” which would account for the missing IMPA listing.
A Times & Transcript article, copied into notes on a 2008 petition at GoPetition.com, said that then-owner Gilles LeBlanc’s father opened the Neptune in 1964, but Gilles was closing it and putting it up for sale. It didn’t mention the earlier closing but said “the drive-in started to fall on hard times in the 1980s”.
The Globe and Mail reported that in 2010, “a local business person bought the property and approached (Jeff) Coates with a suggestion to lease the drive-in business. After discussing the opportunity with (Robert) Farquharson, the duo decided to team up and leased the theatre in 2010.
“After a lapse of four years, the drive-in opened for a 17-week period in the summer of the same year.”
The Neptune’s web site was active in the summer of 2010, so we know it had been revived by then. The site had a note in June 2013 that the drive-in had gone digital.
The Open Air Cinema blog posted in 2009 that the Sussex opened in 1967, founded by Gerald Alexander and his family. They sold to Tom Boudreau, Paul Galloway and Randy Defazio in 2008.
For whatever reason, the Sussex never appeared in the IMPAs. That happens sometimes.
Owner Tom Boudreau told the Telegraph-Journal in May 2017 that the Sussex had never shut down and had been open for “50+ years.” He also said the drive-in’s capacity was “around 450,” reached twice in 2016.
I saw another source that claimed 1950 as the opening year, but it didn’t show up in the MPAs until 1956 or 57.
1957-63: capacity 400, owned by Hazel and Barkhouse.
1969-76: 400.