May 9, 2006

Gaslighter Theatre changing hands

Owner cites problems with city officials

By Daniel DeBolt
Staff Writer

There is nothing else like it in Campbell or the surrounding neighborhoods.

The Gaslighter Theatre is a place where you can see a musical one night, a film another and a rock show the next.

People of all ages can find something of interest there.

After years of struggling to make a decent profit, Susan and Mark Gaetano, the owners of the Gaslighter Theatre since 1980, have sold the theater to Nick D’arpino, who has plans to turn it into a Las Vegas style ultra lounge. The theater will close in June for renovations.

But not for much longer.

After years of struggling to make a decent profit, Susan and Mark Gaetano, the owners of the theater since 1980, have sold the theater to Nick D’arpino, who has plans to turn it into a Las Vegas style ultra lounge.

“The fans are upset because there are not many places for under age people to go and for bands to go,” said Susan Gaetano. “A lot of generations of people have come here. Most people are very sad to see it go.”

But the city probably isn’t one of them, she said.

The theater has had difficulties with the city for the past few years since it started having rock shows for youth a few times a week on top of its theater shows. The theater had been a place for plays and musicals for the last 37 years, but Gaetano said holding the rock shows became necessary for the theater to make money. But the city found the shows to be a nuisance, she said.

After the rock shows began, the theater found itself slapped with an “intensified” live entertainment permit with a set of requirements that seemed ridiculous according to Susan Gaetano, who complained that it was too easy for the city to threaten the theater’s business.

One stipulation of the permit was that everyone, including the owners, had to be out of the theater by midnight every night and couldn’t be back until 8 a.m. Another was that if any band or performer put up a poster downtown, the theater itself would be held responsible. Also, more than 10 people standing outside of the building would cause problems for the theater.

“If one of our bands screws up and posts a poster, we get a letter from the city telling us to remove them or run the risk of losing our live entertainment permits,” Susan Gaetano said. “If someone does put up posters, we really do take it seriously. But you just shake your head after a while.”

Mayor Jeanette Watson said the city isn’t against youth, but “when you have uncontrolled kids” it is a problem.
The main issue, said Captain Dave Dehaan of the Campbell police, was that the theater had to hire contracted security guards, something the Gaetanos felt was unnecessary. Susan said the guards were not only too expensive for the small business but also problematic.

The city felt strongly that the security guards should be trained, but the Gaetanos wanted to be able to hire whomever they felt would do the job the best. The rule applied to all bars in the area, but Susan Gaetano said that the all ages shows shouldn’t have been required to have the same security because fewer people were drinking alcohol.

"Businesses come and go," said Mayor Jeanette Watson when asked if it was unfortunate that the Gaslighter was closing. She said that if the theater had done everything they were supposed to do it would still be there. “There are two sides to every story,” she said. She said there were problems with fights and neighbors complaining about the theater.

There were a handful of incidents over the last few years, Susan Gaetano said, but most were things the venue could not have prevented. Dehaan said there was an incident March 11, 2005 when a band member was hit with a bottle and punched and pulled from the stage. It was later listed on the police blotter as “assault with a deadly weapon,” which Susan felt was inaccurate.

“Every time you get a number of youth together at a rock show you always get a few 'idiots,' but you can only do so much to keep them from acting out,” said Susan.

Probably the worst incident was on July 3, 2005 when police found 30 people fighting in front of Katie Bloom's, a bar down the street from the Gaslighter. In the fray were members of the Gaslighter’s own security in navy blue shirts, police say. When the police arrived everyone ran, including those navy blue shirts from the Gaslighter staff.

Dehaan said he believes that it’s been a long time coming that the theater has been looking to sell and move on. He doesn’t think the reason for the sale was because of conflicts with the city, but that the theater wasn’t a profitable business. “At the theater’s youth rock shows there would be 25 to 40 people, 18 and over, paying $8 each,” Dehaan said. “If you do the math, it’s obvious how hard it would be to run a business on that kind of money.”

An early signal of the theater’s demise could have been the Gaetanos' controversial decision to start charging bands that couldn’t draw a crowd as much as $400 a night to play a show.

“The reality of the business world has changed and the demand for their business has changed,” said City Manager Dan Rich. The business is “no longer economically viable.”

The Gaetanos still own the rights to the theater’s name and say that they could move the business elsewhere, possibly south San Jose in the Santa Teresa and Blossom Valley area. But they say they definitely won’t return to Campbell.

“We find the city of Campbell very difficult to work with,” Susan Gaetano said.

She believes her problems with the theater revolve around "an image thing." Gaetano claims one official told her,
“Campbell wants to be like Los Gatos, and the 'tattoos and piercings' of the youth rock scene don’t fit in with that image.”

The Gaetanos were thinking that some cities might consider going as far as subsidizing a place like the Gaslighter to keep it open because of the number of people it can draw to a downtown. In Morgan Hill the Granada Theater has been closed for over two years and the city considered doing just that to re-open it. But efforts to talk to city officials, namely those on the planning commission, seemed pointless, said Susan Gaetano.

“It basically seemed like things would fall on deaf ears,” she said.