WINTER
SPRING
SPORTS
GUIDE
PREVIEW
THE ASTORIAN
SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 2021 • 13
Caitlin Seyfried
A movie plays at Neptune Movie House’s drive-in.
Continued from Page 12
Stott’s didn’t predict.
“People can bring their dogs, people with
little kids can bring the kids without worry-
ing about them disturbing other people, and
people who smoke can come now. And, of
course, people who are still afraid to go out,”
Stotts said.
Before buying the theater, Stotts owned
the Pioneer Market in Long Beach.
“I grew up working with my parents in our
old store and I just couldn’t do that at Pio-
neer with my son as a single mom. I saw this
as a better fi t,” Stotts said. “It’s family-run.
We have a couple of employees and we’re all
really close. It’s a much diff erent pace.”
Since purchasing the theater, Stotts has
worked on several building upgrades. She
has also planned special movie watching
events for movies.
“It took seven months and then we were
really busy. We started to do events. We had
a ‘Frozen 2’ event. We all dressed up. I had
people lined up all the way to the parking lot
and I had to tell them ‘no seats left,’” Stotts
said.
The theater also held an event for
the release of “Star Wars: The Rise of
Skywalker.”
“The high school came and played ‘Star
Wars’ music down in the theater before it
started,” Stotts said.
Pacifi c Integrated Martial Arts led “jedi
training.” The theater also had face-painting
and everyone dressed up.
“People were asking when we were
going to do more events. They were look-
ing forward to them but then COVID hit, of
course,” Stotts said.
Stotts’ continues to host events to make
the theater a community space. She looks
forward to hosting future ones.
On March 29, the theater hosted a fund-
raiser at the drive-in for the Foss family of
Astoria, who lost their house in a landslide
in January.
Stotts plans to host a concert outside in
May.
“It’s an AC/DC tribute band. They were
supposed to play at the Liberty last year and
then everything shut down. I’m working to
get everything set up out there but I think we
got it,” Stotts said.
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