Committee discusses movie premieres’ impact on Westwood Village businesses

Westwood business owners expressed concerns that movie premieres in the Village may negatively impact their businesses.

At a Westwood Village Improvement Association committee meeting April 18, merchants raised concerns about the effect movie premieres may have on their businesses by closing streets and limiting parking. The WVIA is a nonprofit organization tasked with improving the state of the Village.

Members of the committee discussed possible ways to mitigate these issues, such as releasing notices of premieres in advance and requiring local theaters to compensate surrounding businesses.

Westwood hosts around 24 movie premieres per year, said Andrew Thomas, the executive director of the WVIA. Movie premieres have positive and negative effects on businesses, he added.

“Movie premieres gave a lot of cash to theaters,” Thomas said. “(However), consumers can’t come to stores due to closed streets and limited capacity of parking.”

Thomas said the committee plans to recommend several changes to movie premiere policies in the Village to mitigate impacts on businesses.

“The committee will come up with guidelines to guide the theaters hosting premieres. Other businesses will get notifications as early as possible,” Thomas said. “We will also open the sidewalk to help consumers enter.”

Andrew Golin, the vice president of Regency Theatres, said he thinks premieres are beneficial to merchants in Westwood because people attending the premieres will frequent other businesses as well.

“Overall, premieres are great for the local economy,” Golin said.

Golin said theaters do not usually compensate businesses for premieres.

“Theaters don’t pay compensation. That’s something production companies deal with,” Golin said. “In terms of early notice, as soon as movie premieres are confirmed, we will notify the merchants.”

Thomas said he thinks it is necessary to compensate Westwood businesses for the lost revenue caused by premieres.

“Businesses are losing their revenues due to movie premieres. No other communities get compensations, but I don’t care what others do,” Thomas said. “All I know is our businesses take financial hits and they need compensation to recover from that.”

Thomas added he thinks the community will no longer support movie premieres if theaters don’t compensate businesses.

Kevin Guaz, a senior employee of It’s Boba Time, said he thinks theaters often do not notify businesses about premieres early enough.

“(Notice can be given) as late as one or two days before,” Guaz said. “Last time, we got noticed and closed the store in one day.”

Ismael Ibarra, the kitchen manager of California Pizza Kitchen, said although movie premieres have impacted the restaurant in the past, he thinks they can help the broader community.

“It’s good for the community, but sometimes we lost business because streets got closed,” Ibarra said.

Thomas said the committee plans to create guidelines for how theaters should handle premieres in the future. The committee will present its guidelines to the board of directors at their meeting in May.