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Six Percent of Nothing

So, the City of Richmond has dropped $20 million on a new Canal Walk to draw national attention and tourism dollars. Beyond that, the city is also expanding its convention center to the tune of $75 million to bring in the conventioneers.

We hear all sorts of plans for rejuvenating the downtown area. Some sound better than others. And since I, too, hope the best for Richmond, I'm offering a suggestion that we believe will be a boon to the cause.

Best of all, this step would cost very little in the short run. And in the long run, it could make Richmond a lot of money in additional sales-tax collections.

Owing to the experience of having once managed a cinema in Richmond (The Biograph), your narrator is well aware of the existence of an obscure tax that directly touches few people, yet has a profound indirect effect on the entire metro area. The City of Richmond collects six percent - off the top - of the price of every movie ticket sold.

Likewise, it does the same for any event that charges more than 50 cents admission. Thus, a Bonnie Raitt performance or even a lecture at the Landmark Theater is subject to this tax as well.

Richmond should do away with this outdated admissions tax. It may have been a good idea once - though I'm not saying it ever was - but today the negative effect of this tax far outweighs the benefit of the revenue it brings.

Due in some part to Richmond's admissions tax, there are only three movie theaters still in operation within the city limits - the Byrd Theater, which plays second-run films, the Westhampton, which screens the art flicks the mainstream theaters won't carry, and the Science Museum's IMAX theater. All of these play important roles in the city, but none of them are first-run major theater chains.

So where are the big movie theaters in the Richmond area where you can go to see the latest blockbuster? In the suburban surrounding counties of Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover, where there is no such tax.

I'm not suggesting that the only reason the movie-theater business moved to the suburbs was the admissions tax. What I am saying is that the tax does prevent the entertainment available in town from being as vibrant and enticing as it could or should be.

A visitor to Richmond who might choose to stay in a downtown hotel is interested in the range and quality of entertainment and eateries within walking distance.

If you were thinking of bringing a convention to the Richmond Centre, you would have to consider what the entertainment options are in the surrounding area. And right now, what you'd see, if you look around, is a retail ghost town with precious few options for nightlife close by.

Furthermore, you would see that most of the big traveling shows skip Richmond altogether. Rock 'n' Roll shows, stage musicals, and all sorts of road shows are now passing this area over in favor of other markets. A big reason why is that a whopping six percent comes right off the top of the gross for every show.

And this tax is in addition to the other taxes and fees that must also be paid to the city.

Chuck Wrenn, owner of the recently closed Moondance Saloon and one of Richmond's best known impresarios, offered this observation when asked for his view of the admission tax: "That six percent has a whole lot to do with the lack of entertainment in downtown Richmond."

And, here's former Flood Zone owner and developer Mason Wyatt on the same subject: "I can say that the six percent admissions tax seriously impacted the financial success of events I promoted during my tenure as managing partner. … Furthermore, after paying thousands and thousands of admissions tax dollars to the City of Richmond, all we ever got back was a hard time and some parking tickets!"

Meanwhile, smart money doesn't want to reopen the old National Theater on Broad Street. Which of course means there won't be a restaurant or two that might thrive off of the crowds that a movie theater brings into a neighborhood. When a theater is doing well, the other businesses around it all benefit.

On West Grace Street, the Biograph's demise was surely part of what killed two wonderful restaurants, Mad King Ludwig's and Grace Place. And we know that the city's counterproductive admissions tax played a significant role in loosening the Biograph's fragile grip on life.

Richmond's movie-theater history dates back to an 1897 demonstration of a "cineograph" at the legendary Academy of Music on 8th Street. Richmond is fortunate that the Byrd Theater is still in operation. The Byrd, opened in 1928, is an elegant example of the movie palace craze that swept the nation just before The Depression.

However, for other cinemas that once drew lively crowds, and were key elements of Richmond's colorful show business history, their screens remain dark.

Here is a partial list of the movie theaters no longer operating in Richmond: Albion, Bijou, Biograph, Blue-Bird, Booker-T, Brookland, Capital, Carillon, Colonial, Dixie, Eastend, Edison, Ginter, Grand, Hippodrome, Ideal, Isis, Lee, Little, Lubin, Lyric, Majestic, National, New, Odeon, Orient, Park, Pekin, Pon-ton, Regency, Rex, Rialto, Robinson, Royal, State, Strand, Superior, Theatre Comique, Theatro, Trans-Lux, Venus, Victoria, Virginia, Walker and Westover!

The Westhampton and the Byrd are still being squeezed by what amounts to a folly of a tax policy. But we must wonder, how long before it's six percent of nothing.

And why in the world would we want to discourage Bonnie Raitt from coming to town?