San Francisco Movie Bears

CINEMARK/CENTURY
BOYCOTT
Comes to an end.

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San Francisco, CA

Dave Hayes and Drew Galleni of San Francisco Movie Bears, and Justin Green from Nomilkforcinemark.com announce that they will be discontinuing their nationwide boycott of Cinemark Theatres, including Century, Cine Arts, and Tinseltown on January 1st, 2010. This action is in response to word that Cinemark, who’s CEO Alan Stock donated $9,999.00 to the Yes on 8 Campaign, is offering Domestic Partner Benefits to all of their LGBT Employees also effective January 1.

“This is a step in the right direction” says Mr. Hayes, SF MovieBears founder and Co-Coordinator of the group.  “We’re happy that Cinemark has made this decision, but we plan to keep a close eye on them and Mr. Stock.” SF MovieBears polled their large membership and a majority of them have stated the boycott should end on this news.  Many also feel that Cinemark, and Stock should still issue an apology, and donate an equal amount to a marriage equality organization.  “We hope Mr. Stock has learned from this experience that his personal actions as the head of a major corporation not only hurts him, but everyone within that corporation.” states Hayes.

On November 13th, 2008, SF MovieBears learned that Mr. Stock made the donation to Yes on 8 and announced the boycott of Cinemark.  The following day, Mr. Green launched nomilkforcinemark.com in an effort to keep people away from Cinemark to see the highly anticipated film “Milk” about slain San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk. Milk, the first openly gay elected official, who was a driving force for LGBT Rights in San Francisco in the 70’s. Milk was murdered by former SF City Supervisor Dan White.

Since the start of the boycott, Mr. Hayes estimates that his group alone has cost Cinemark over $20,000 in ticket sales.  He can only guess that at least that much has been lost in concession sales, if not more.  Big theatres make most of their revenue on concession sales.  These amounts do not include the revenue lost nationwide as a result of the nomilkforcinemark.com website, or other groups like SF MovieBears nationwide.

SF MovieBears is hoping to use the Century Theatres for future fundraising events, and are currently working with the local SF Century Theatre manager to get a theatre donated for such an event.  They will also be contacting Raymond Syufy, the former owner of California based Century Theatres, which merged with Cinemark.  Mr. Syufy is a major shareholder in Cinermark, and SF MovieBears plan to seek his help in directing Cinemark to do more outreach with the LGBT community.

If you need more information, please contact Dave Hayes – 415-683-1103