Drive-In Fades Out--Slowly : Oceanside Theater Is Still Profitable, but Its Days Are Numbered

Jerry Beauchamp calls it a “piece of the Baby-Boomer American pie,” and in North County there’s still a large slice.

Beauchamp, 36, is the manager of the Valley Drive-In Theatre, a 25-year-old, four-screen operation that its owners believe is the largest drive-in still left in America. For three years, as drive-ins have closed across the country, rumors of its imminent demise have circulated.

It was three years ago that owners John and Bob Siegel entered into a 90-year lease with La Jolla developer Ben Cipranic, who wants to build a mammoth shopping center and entertainment complex on the 115 acres on Mission Avenue where the drive-in sits.

Before Cipranic became interested in the Valley Drive-In site, his Old California Development Co. built a shopping center on the site of the former Frontier Drive-In in the Midway district.

Cipranic’s latest project has been set back with years of delays, but he says he hopes to begin construction within a year, which will mean the demise of the Valley.

Lyle Scharnow, general manager of the Valley 4 for the Siegel brothers--who also own the Village Theatre in Coronado--laughs and says, “Well, this has been going on now for three years. I can’t say for sure how long the drive-in will operate.”

“Who knows?” says Beauchamp. “We could be open for another five.”

Unlike a lot of drive-ins around the country, the Valley 4 is popular and profitable, Scharnow says. Beauchamp says it sometimes sells out on Friday and Saturday nights, when local families and Marines from Camp Pendleton pull in to watch such movies as “Terminator 2.”

But Scharnow concedes that it’s not as popular as it used to be, and just about everyone in city government says the shopping center and entertainment complex--even if it means the end of the Valley--would be a godsend for Oceanside.

City officials say it could bring to their cash-starved city a minimum of $1 million a year in tax revenue, not to mention jobs.

But will it happen?

Cipranic’s vision of the Ocean Pointe project in the San Luis Rey River Valley illustrates how long developments can take to be approved these days. One delay has been caused by the California Department of Transportation, which wants to convert Mission Avenue into a freeway, California 76.

Environmental concerns have been raised about flood control in the river valley and the preservation of a small songbird called the least Bell’s vireo, which is listed on the federal endangered species list. Although Cipranic says such problems will soon be overcome, he has yet to file an application with the city of Oceanside.

Until he does, the sometimes lengthy process of conducting an environmental impact report, or EIR, can’t begin. Susan Holder, assistant planning director for the city of Oceanside, says the project just doesn’t exist until someone files the paperwork.

“Until there’s paperwork, there’s no EIR,” she said. “And, until there’s an EIR, there’s no project. That’s pretty much where it stands. I keep hearing something may happen soon, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

Cipranic says he hopes to apply within two months. He says he would have applied by now had his engineers not been trying to design “a better off-ramp” leading from the proposed freeway into the complex.

“We will definitely have it built before the next five years,” he said. “Our job is to do that off-ramp. That freeway is expected to handle 65,000 cars a day when it opens. And the center will generate a tremendous amount of traffic.”

That’s what some people are worried about. Some of the drive-in’s patrons who live in the area and nearby merchants sound skeptical about adding to Oceanside’s proliferation of traffic and shopping centers.

Some see the threatened demise of the Valley as one more symbol of the past colliding with the present in North County.

“If it closes, me, I’ll be sad,” said Beauchamp, who has worked at the Valley for eight years. “The drive-in is a piece of American history. And we serve the entire county. The closest drive-in to the north is Anaheim, and to the south, the Harbor in National City.”

Beauchamp says drive-ins have closed in San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Orange and Lemon Grove, not to mention the Frontier and the Campus near San Diego State University. The 1,600-space Valley is North County’s only drive-in. Other survivors are in Santee, El Cajon and Imperial Beach.

“The shopping center is a matter of opinion, and people go both ways,” said a Mission Avenue merchant who asked not to be named. “While the city could benefit from tax revenue, you would have increased traffic and would need increased fire protection and law enforcement.

“At what point does growth get overwhelming and start detracting from a city? Like a lot of people, I don’t want another Los Angeles. I’m tired of cities doing so much building.”

John Mamaux, the city manager of Oceanside, says the shopping center and entertainment complex, which would feature a 12-screen indoor theater, would be preferable to a drive-in that has to supplement revenue by staging swap meets on weekends.

“Tax revenues would help, and people in the valley would benefit by not having to drive out of the neighborhood to shop,” Mamaux said. “I suppose the drive-in has historical and sentimental value, but it can be replaced.”

A lot of Valley regulars don’t think so.

Rachel Gentzsch, 40, of Oceanside, said the Valley is the only place where she can take two sons and “not have to pay a fortune--it’s $4.50 for me, and they’re free, because they’re both under 12.

“I love this place,” Gentzsch said. “I grew up in Detroit and Indiana, and we always went to the drive-in. Were I to take my boys to an indoor theater, I’d pay $7.50 apiece for all three of us, so $22.50 versus $4.50 is no contest.”

Tina Rosa, 29, of San Marcos, said the drive-in is the only theater where she feels comfortable taking a 2-year-old, much less a younger child. She and her kids, ages 8 and 2, were at the Valley the other night to see “Naked Gun 2 1/2” and “Soapdish.”

“It’s too expensive to hire a baby-sitter, and we can all enjoy ourselves here,” Rosa said. “I would really hate to see it close. Who needs another shopping center?”

Don, a Marine staff sergeant and Operation Desert Storm veteran who asked that his surname not be published, said the Valley brings back memories of a New Jersey boyhood.

“They can probably make more money with a shopping center, but this,” he said, with an arm around a date, “is a hell of a lot more fun.”

Sean Conner, 19, a recent graduate of Carlsbad High School, said he would mourn the Valley’s loss. He’s been going to it “since I was a kid.”

But Eric Stitt, 18, a fellow Carlsbad grad, said he welcomed the new development.

“We need some new life, some new blood around here,” Stitt said. “And let’s face it, movies are much better indoors.”

Beauchamp concedes that the Valley is not a haven for cinematic mavens. He says anything by Schwarzenegger or a shoot-’em-up action picture is a guaranteed hit. Art films or anything by Woody Allen “dies on the vine,” Beauchamp said.

Cipranic thinks its day has come. He’s banking on a two-phase operation--the first would demolish the drive-in--that will raise Ocean Pointe’s leasable space to 1.7 million square feet.

The Plaza Camino Real in Carlsbad, which critics say is too close to Cipranic’s space to make his profitable, has about 1.1 million square feet, while North County Fair in Escondido has about 1.26 million square feet.

Cipranic envisions a 200,000-square-foot discount store, a 60,000-square-foot supermarket and “various other tenants in the 100,000-square-foot range.” He says a tenant is signed for the discount store but declined to say who.

As for the drive-in, “I have nostalgic, mixed emotions,” he said. “The truth of the matter is, if you could operate successfully--as much so as a big center--why change? But this is the ‘90s. People want their movies indoors. Why not give them 12 screens and a big complex, where they can really have fun?”