I am a Kabuki employee.
When the remodel took place the City took records of how much electricity was used during the years of 2004, 2005, and 2006,
found the average mean of the monthly energy expenditure and said, "you can never ever go over this amount of electricity in
a single month, because you must conform to the city's green standards." It is for this reason that there are no
"eco-friendly" electric hand driers in the lavatories. That electricity comes from coal-burning, btw.
The paper towels in the bathroom, as well as the paper napkins in the concession stand are purchased from companies that focus on sustainable sources for their paper products.
We do not use plastic containers in the concession stand. We use containers made from corn starch that are visually indistinguishable from plastic. We use "spudware" forks and spoons instead of plastic ones. In fact, there is nothing plastic in the concession stand.
We do not have solar panels on the roof because, despite the fact that much of the roof is made of glass, an image that almost automatically brings to mind solar energy, the rest of the roof is very small and, at the current time, not a reasonable place to stick solar panels. Solar power is an option we are looking into, but we can't make any promises. This is a tricky situation for us because solar panels may go a long way to convincing people that a building is green, but do not go a long way toward getting any electricity for a building our size.
The amenities fee exists because of the nature of the contracts between movie distributors and theaters. Since the dawn of time no theater has ever made money showing movies. Theaters make money selling popcorn, and in our case, extremely expensive
gourmet chocolates. Movie distributors make money when theaters sell tickets. When you go to any theater, including the Kabuki, about 90-95% of the money for the ticket goes to Miramax, or 20th Century fox, or Dreamworks, or wherever. The contracts are based on percentages. That means that if we insinuated for one second that the ticket price was $12.50, $13.50, or $150,000 a ticket, then $11.87, $12.82, or $142,500 of those tickets would go to distributors and not the theater. It is for this reason that we must be very clear not to say that the ticket is $13.50.
You're right, we didn't need that new carpet in the lobby, but we felt it was a good opportunity to support a company that uses recycled and recyclable materials in their carpets and seeks to start relationships with companies that will last as long as the buildings last. When that carpet finally gets too dirty/contaminated/stained that carpet company will come in and recycle it and give us some new carpet back, made out of recycled materials. Nothing gets thrown out. Yeah, it wasn't
necessary, but it was a strong step in building a network of green businesses in San Francisco that support each other.
Everyday someone who fancies himself Spartacus of the moviegoing public boldly announces to me that he will take his business elsewhere as if it was some unanticipated and fatal blow to the theater.
Even taking one step toward greening a business opens the floodgates for a tidal wave of uninformed speculation. We have been
open as Sundance Kabuki Cinemas for a little over one month and every step we've taken toward a sustainable theater is just the beginning, so excuse us for being the pioneers here, feel free to compare us to the other green theaters in the Bay Area, once there are any.
We're doing something new and we just started. We are sincerely appreciative of all the people who support what we're trying to do and who reserve judgment without speculating on things outside of their range. So to all those supporters, thank you. More than 3000 people came to our theater last Saturday. This is a number far beyond what we could have hoped for. We know some of those people may have been disappointed by something new that we're doing, and maybe those people won't be back, and we're sorry to lose those patrons, but we're already seeing the impact of word-of-mouth in the city from people who are more than pleased with the new scenario. The reserved seating is about a month old and we're already seeing people come in who have the procedure down perfectly.
In conclusion, since many people on this website don't know what they're talking about, instead of speculating, call us up. 415-346-3243. There's almost always a staff member right by the phone, hopefully with a few minutes to spare to clear up a question you have. Let me be clear, if you have a *question* please, please call. We're all very polite supercool people. If you have a suggestion, comment, or potential business strategy then be sure to NOT call and NOT come in and talk to us about it. read more