Dublin’s Light House Cinema Board Members are to meet this evening to discuss the upcoming High Court hearing of a petition to wind up the Smithfield based cinema. Disagreements regarding a rent increase lead to the issuing of a wind-up petition from John Flynn, the cinema’s landlord but Light House cinema co-founder, Maretta Dillon tells IFTN the board members are hoping to negotiate the situation.
The cinema’s directors learned of the petition on Friday, March 18th and have since sought legal advice. Speaking to IFTN, co-founder Maretta Dillon outlined the priorities of the meeting today: ”We have to work on this for the benefit of both our customers and creditors” she explained. “We will take action yes, we are hoping to negotiate around this.” The cinema’s Board Members include the executive directors of the Light House; Neil Connolly and co-founder Maretta alongside filmmakers David Collins and David Kavanagh who serve as non-executive directors.
The rent for the Light House cinema was doubled in May 2010 from €100,000 to €200,000, this increase was outlined in the original lease but, Dillon points out that certain conditions have not played out as of yet. “The increase was outlined in the original lease but our point is that we agreed to pay a baseline rent based on a successful development which has not occurred,” she explains. Landlord John Flynn has now issued a wind-up petition against the Light House Cinema Exhibition and Distribution Company Ltd, following an ongoing dispute with regards to the rent increase. Said petition will be heard on Monday, March 28th by the Irish High Courts.
The Light House cinema was originally located in Dublin’s Abbey Street from 1988 to 1996 before relocating to its current Smithfield location. Designed by Derek Tynan Associates, the new building houses four cinema screens in a basement building in Smithfield Market and caters mainly for art-house audiences.
The Light House is still open for business with titles such as ‘Animal Kingdom’ and ‘Submarine’ screening. Irish feature film ‘Killing Bono’ is due to open there next week.
- A spokesperson informed IFTN on Wednesday. March 24th that the group would not comment on the outcome of the board meeting until after the hearing on Monday, March 28th.
