Council greenlights theater plan
The City Council voted 6-1 to grant Los Angeles-based Maya Cinemas an exclusive right to negotiate with San Bernardino Economic Development Agency officials to run the former CinemaStar theater downtown.
CinemaStar's people bailed out in late September. The EDA owns the property and sent CinemaStar a termination notice earlier this month.
Fifth Ward Councilman Chas Kelley cast the only dissenting vote. He didn't speak out on the reason for his opposition and the council immediately headed into closed session after casting their vote.
Maya Cinemas chief operation officer Frank Haffar said movies could show at the cinema as early as December. An Imax screen could be in place around Memorial Day weekend.




Not being familiar with Maya Cinemas I took the time to read up on the Corp after I Googled them. They are an interesting company that features Spanish (speaking) Movies. Yes Sir, that is exactly what Downtown San Bernardino needs. Last time I looked I was in the United States of America, where ENGLISH is spoken and thousands of folks wait patiently in line to legally enter this country and for the opportunity assimilate into our culture and way of life.
Yet we continue to cater to a very large group of people who flaunt the fact that they can easily and often break our immigration laws by coming and going across our Southern boarder unchecked. They have impacted our education system forcing bilingual teaching at the expense of the English speakers. Additionally they are not getting the required inoculations for their children. This has resulted in the reintroduction of what is/was known as the childhood diseases of our parents; (polio, chicken pox, mumps and measles [rubella] and whopping cough).
Now the City Council has sold this theater to a company that supports a foreign language. What next, sell the large AMERICAN flag for one that goes along with this new direction San Bernardino is now taking? As this action was done to recoup taxpayer money originally spent on the theaters, perhaps the more appropriate thing to do would have been to put this sale on the November ballet and see if the legal citizens/voters of San Bernardino support this very questionable business decision. After all, it is THEIR City.
We may never know the facts surrounding this “deal” and what were the drivers due to the fact that all decisions pertaining to it was done secretly behind closed doors away from the public’s eye and the media’s reporting. Is this kind of Governing really in the best interest of the voters who have elected these decision makers?