Alamo Drafthouse responds to San Antonio petition to save Westlakes location
Alamo Drafthouse responded to the San Antonio petition regarding the Westlakes location – which the company permanently closed in April.
On June 10, local Julian Wagstaff created the petition on change.org with the hopes of letting the cinema chain know how much the closure of the Westlakes theater hurt the community around it.
“As someone who really frequented that location a lot, I’ve been going there a lot for the past six or seven years, I didn’t want the place to go down without a fight or at least something small,” Wagstaff says. “I wanted to be able to say I did something small that I didn’t just let this staple go away.”
RELATED: Local launches petition to revive Alamo Drafthouse Westlakes location
The Alamo Drafthouse Westlakes theater was the Austin-based chain’s first location to open in San Antonio in 2004. Though the Park North spot reopened last August, the chain’s Stone Oak and Westlakes locations kept their doors closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company ultimately closed the Westlakes establishment in April, one month after the chain filed for bankruptcy in March.
On June 19, Wagstaff received word from the San Antonio Current that the Alamo Drafthouse sent the publication a statement regarding his action that led to nearly 3,000 signatures.
Here’s the statement:
“We’re honored and humbled by the petition and the response from the Westlakes community. While we can’t get into the nitty-gritty details, we can say that the decision to close Westlakes was not made casually, or without consideration of the impact on guests and team members. Facing impending bankruptcy brought on by the long-term effects of the pandemic, this year we were forced to make many, many difficult decisions, which included the closure of four much-beloved locations, including Westlakes and The Ritz, our historic downtown Austin flagship location.
Closing Westlakes was a difficult blow to our team, and we know it’s deeply disappointing to the tens of thousands of San Antonians who made it their second home over the past seventeen years. Thank you for sharing how important Westlakes was to you and your families. We hope to create many more memories with you soon at our Park North and Stone Oak locations.”
Wagstaff maintains the statement doesn’t address any of the claims made in the petition, which asked how Alamo Drafthouse is opening other locations in the U.S. but then closing the Westlakes location.
