{"id":3555,"date":"2018-06-20T17:07:19","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T21:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3555"},"modified":"2018-06-20T17:07:19","modified_gmt":"2018-06-20T21:07:19","slug":"star-theater-in-berkeley-springs-up-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3555","title":{"rendered":"Star Theater in Berkeley Springs Up for Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

The iconic Star Theater of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia is up for sale.<\/span><\/p>\n

Star Theater owners Jeanne Mozier and Jack Soronen have decided that after 40 years of showing movies every weekend, it\u2019s time to call it quits.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Asking price? $350,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been 40 years that Jack and I have been doing this every weekend and we feel it is getting about time we have to retire,\u201d Mozier told Talk Radio WRNR with Rob Mario and David Welch. \u201cWe do it ourselves, which is one of the issues with trying to sell it. Somehow, people think they are going to do it the same way we do. And it\u2019s like \u2013 I don\u2019t think so. We had other jobs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that the Star will find its next owner. This is a building where movies have been shown for 90 years and we are only the third owner in 90 years. That is amazing. People need to understand \u2013 this is a rare opportunity to own this property.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

How has the business changed over the years?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe big change was when it changed to digital in 2013 or so,\u201d Mozier said. \u201cThe movie industry said to all of it\u2019s theaters \u2013 if you want to keep being a theater, you have to go digital. And that was a $70,000 investment for us just for our one screen. You can imagine what these multiplexes had to pay. But it does make life a whole lot easier \u2013 so Jack now just has to go upstairs and push a button.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The technology went from the flame in the projector to digital in 13 years. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI used to go to Washington every week to exchange the movies,\u201d Mozier said. \u201cThe movies came in these giant metal cans. They were on reels. With the old projectors, with those carbon arc projectors, Jack had to be up there in the projection room all the time. You had to switch back and forth between projectors every twenty minutes. That\u2019s how long the reels were.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t happen anymore. Now, UPS delivers the movie in an embedded hard drive. No more Washington. Which is good because traffic has gotten out of control.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a single screen, single owner theater is extremely rare. There are probably not 200 of them in the country. I deal directly with the studios. Most studios deal with a booker who handle dozens of theaters.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen home videos appeared in the 1980s, that changed the model. It accelerated the time when movies became available. Then there was the whole notion of so many opportunities for entertainment. How do you get people to get into the movie theaters? It seems like it\u2019s a human experience to be in a theater with other people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur price is $5 a ticket. Our tourists will come in and say \u2013 \u00a0$5? Do you know how much I have to pay where I live?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mozier said that the Start Theater pays a percentage of the gross to the studios \u2013 35 percent to 65 percent \u2013 depending on the movie, depending on the studio. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDisney is the worst \u2013 they get 65 percent,\u201d Mozier said. \u201cWhen you are showing a first run movie, they take 90 percent. And you are committed to showing it for several weeks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will do everything in our power to see that the Star continues to operate as a movie theater,\u201d Mozier said. \u201cIf somebody wanted to do this, they would probably expand the times and number of nights that a movie was being shown. We limited it to Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We were too busy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s next? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be nice to travel,\u201d Mozier said. \u201cBefore we came to Berkeley Springs, we traveled around the country for a year. It would be nice to be able to do that again and not have to worry about getting back for the movie on the weekend.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The iconic Star Theater of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia is up for sale. Star Theater owners Jeanne Mozier and Jack Soronen have decided that after 40 years of showing movies every weekend, it\u2019s time to call it quits. Asking price? … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3556,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555\/revisions\/3556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}