AMC Theatres will be reopening two of its larger locations Monday, with a plan to fully reopen all L.A. County theaters by Friday, March 19.

The first reopening theaters will be the AMC Burbank 16 and AMC Century City 15 locations. After that, the rest of the county’s 23 theaters will reopen by Friday, March 19.

“The reopening of movie theatres in Los Angeles County and throughout California is a momentous occasion for AMC Theatres, for our guests, for our associates, for our studio partners, and for the entire theatrical exhibition industry,”  Adam Aron, CEO and President of AMC, said in a statement. “To put the magnitude of Los Angeles reopening in perspective, as a movie market, the L.A. DMA is about double the size of the New York City market, which just finished last weekend as the No. 1 DMA in our circuit for box office.”

AMC has reopened more than 500 of its theaters across the country, already testing its new cleaning and safety measures.

The Basic Measures

Among the “AMC Safe & Clean” measures that Californians have become accustomed to over the last year are mandatory mask use for all, except when eating or drinking, social distancing while in lines, cashless transactions and hand sanitizers/Clorox wipes located throughout the theaters.

Social Distance Seating Technology

When buying tickets online, through the app or even on of AMC’s kiosks, the theater has not only set up a limited capacity per auditorium, but will also automatically block out surrounding seats, to comply with distancing measures.

In accordance with California Public Health regulations, the theaters will only be filled at 25% of its max capacity.

Extra Cleaning 

AMC has added more time in between showings to allow for more thorough cleaning procedures. The movie theater company is using “electrostatic disinfectant sprayers,” after every showing, which “maximizes surface coverage by using negatively charged ions so that the disinfectant particles wrap around and cling to positively charged surfaces,” according to AMC.

The company has also equipped its theaters with MERV 13 air filtration systems, which were the same requirement for L.A. County schools to reopen indoors.

At night, AMC theater carpets will be cleaned with vacuums equipped with HEPA filters, which they say traps more than 99% of air particles.

There will also be continuous cleaning of often-touched surfaces such as door handles, tray tables, recliner seat buttons and handrails.

Refills and Condiments

Before the pandemic, AMC used to have self-serve drink stations that allowed moviegoers to freely refill their drinks. Refills will still be available, but there will be an extra step of asking an employee to do it. Same goes for condiments that used to be available in a self-serve manner, such as butter, ketchup and mustard. These things can all be requested and served by an employee.

On Friday, L.A. County qualified to enter the “red tier” of California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy and in that tier, sectors such as movie theaters, gyms and indoor dining rooms were allowed to reopen at a limited capacity.

 

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