The Executive Director of the Kamloops Film Society says the Paramount Theatre in downtown Kamloops won’t be able to operate as a sports bar like Vancouver’s Rio Theatre because it doesn’t have a liquor licence just yet.

Speaking on NL Newsday, Dusan Magdolen says he is disappointed that the society wasn’t able to continue with private movie screenings because of health orders that limit gatherings and events in the province, noting it affects some businesses more than others.

“Literally we were having six people in a theatre for 500 or two people we were doing, you know the date night private bookings, but we’re not allowed to do those,” he said. “I know restaurants have been hit hard as well, but there does seem to be a weird gap there that seems to be a little bit attacking the arts, if I’m being honest.”

“The arts sector sort of goes, ‘oh you’re not even allowing us to do the little bit that we can.’ It doesn’t make any sense to me why a theatre of 500 can’t have even ten people in there, but restaurants can basically be full as long as the tables are distanced apart.”

Magdolen says the Kamloops Film Society had to cancel about two dozen private screenings in December after the restrictions were put in place in November, noting that meant a lot of lost revenue.

“Even if they had made a limit of six which is the number of people that can sit at a table at a restaurant, you know, we probably would have saved two-thirds of those,” he added.

“There’s a lot of different kinds of businesses in the province and its very hard for them to make orders that are very specific to every industry and every sort of situation, but if they had even limited us to six, we could have at least done something.”