April 2009 Archives

Empire Theatres has announced the closure of the Showcase Cinemas on Harvester Road in Burlington as of today (Sunday, April 12, 2009). Their last film will un-spool tonight after over twenty-four years of service to the Burlington community.

While this is good news for Encore Cinemas, we still cannot simply allow this passing of a community landmark without some recognition of this cinema and what it has meant to the many people who experienced many hours of entertainment, celebrated their special occasions or had that first date. Cinemas are important community assets and the corporate giants that own most of them (Encore is proud to be a very rare independent company with local ownership) usually just suddenly close them without notice or fanfare. One day they are there, the next they are not. When I used to work for the big cinema chains, theatre staff would often show up for work only to find that head office closed the theatre without so much as a goodbye party.

OK, this may sound overly sentimental for what is simply a building, but when you consider the experiences in our lives that are centred on movie going; you can see how it warrants more than a simple last turn of a key and permanent darkness. I have spent 31 years in this business and a cinema closing to me (whether it is one I have some connect to or not) is always a sad event.

Having said all of that, we want the customers and employees of the Showcase to know that Encore has a place for you at both our Burlington and Oakville Cinemas!  Over the next few weeks, we will be making some changes in Burlington to increase our level of service and facilities to accommodate our (hopefully) new guests so please check us out!  If there is anything we can do to accommodate your movie going needs, let us know and we will try to help!

Showcase Cinemas Burlington

1984-2009

R.I.P.