FILM CLUB ACQUIRES CRANDELL THROUGH PARTNERSHIP

Mike McCagg

ccSCOOP News

One of the county’s most historic theaters has a new owner.   The Crandell Theatre, a landmark on Chatham’s Main Street, has been purchased and turned over to the Chatham Film Club to operate.   Chatham businesswoman Judy Grunberg, who partnered with Village Trustee Lael Locke to facilitate the purchase, confirmed for ccSCOOP on Wednesday that the deal has been reached. "I am very pleased because we all shared the same ideas about keeping the Crandell the way it was," said Grunberg,

Grunberg said the Film Club will take over ownership of the theater and hopes to have it running by the July 4 holiday.

“It was never my intention to own it. I don’t want to own it. . . . I just wanted it to be kept in local hands. The Film Club will be running it,” Grunberg told ccSCOOP.

In a prepared statement, Film Club President Sandi Knakal thanked Grunberg and Locke, as well as “the hundreds of you—who wrote checks big and small, dropped your tens and twenties into collection boxes and fishbowls, and gave us moral support.”

The purchase means the continuation of the successful,  longtime FilmColumbia Festival—a staple of October in the county—at the theater, as well as monthly screenings of art and foreign films. Knakal has vowed previously to ccSCOOP that they would continue showing first-run, commercially viable movies at the theater.

“The Crandell is the heart of Main Street, and the Chatham Film Club and its over 400 members are committed to continuing its operation as a first-run, community-oriented and affordable movie theater, just as Tony and Sandy Quirino did for many years," she said in a prepared statement on Wednesday.

Officials said work needs to be done on the theater and that the Film Club will continue raising funds. Updated restrooms and projection equipment are among items that the club would like to acquire for the theater.

The Film Club was one of three entities to express interest in purchasing the theater after Tony Quirino’s unexpected death in January. Its initial offer was rejected by his widow, Sandra Quirino, in March, leading to the club’s dealings with Locke and Grunberg. The club had arranged a partnership in 2008 with Quirino and was working on a deal—announced in 2008—to purchase the theater and have Quirino continue to manage operations.

A fixture on Chatham's Main Street since the 1920s, the theater had been in the Quirino family since 1961 and has been operational since the days of vaudeville.