Dear Save Summerfield Supporters:

THANK YOU to the 30+ community members who stood with us on the rally line in front of the Summerfield Cinemas this past Saturday, 2/15/25. We received many honks and thumbs up in support from drivers passing by on Summerfield Road. Great job!! 

NEXT... make your voices heard. Write to the City Council to tell them why the community needs this site to remain a cinema / movie house. See my letter below. Email Paul Seif at savesummerfield@gmail.com to be on the local committee's mailing list for future planning meetings and/or if you have any questions. THANK YOU again for all your support from near and far - we so appreciate the nearly 2,700 signers of this petition, keep sharing the petition, and drop a comment or short video in the comments section of the petition to make your voice heard. Thank you!

My Letter to City of Santa Rosa, California - please write your own letters in support of "Save the Summerfield Cinemas" to the City Council at the following email: citycouncil@srcity.org

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Subject: follow up from Derek Stefan re: Save Summerfield Cinemas & Lakeside Shopping Center

2/20/25

Dear Honorable Mayor, City Council Members and City Manager:

Following up on my public comment yesterday, 2/19/25, at your Annual Goal Setting Meeting. Our Save Summerfield Citizens Committee urges the Council to pass a resolution protecting small, local businesses in shopping centers that are in a CN (Neighborhood Commercial) district. (City Zoning Code)* categories. We support a special business district overlay that gives small, local businesses a competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace being overtaken by large corporate interests with little or no local ties. Think "Small Business Saturday" (the AMEX created small business program) everyday in the Lakeside Shopping Center, adjacent Village Shopping Center on Montgomery Drive, the Town & Country on Elizabeth Way, and more.

Relevant to the Lakeside Shopping Center which includes the Summerfield Cinemas, East West Restaurant, Mary's Pizza Shack, a preschool/daycare, a Thai kick boxing studio and other small businesses, it is important to the community to keep Big Box and chain stores from over taking these locations, thus preserving the neighborhood character and giving small businesses opportunities to thrive.

• Specific to saving the Summerfield Cinemas site at 551 Summerfield Road it was built in ~1967 and has cultural and historical significance to our community.
  Historical background here: https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/29222
• Santa Rosa Cinemas / Tocchini Family history in Sonoma County and beyond since the 1920s: https://santarosacinemas.com/Pages/company-history

Brief background:
Our group has successfully deterred Planet Fitness from replacing the Summerfield Theater but it now faces a true existential threat: the operator of the Summerfield Theater, the Tocchini family, has informed the public that it must cease operations by April for financial considerations. The shopping center in which the theater sits has been on the market for many years and may change hands within 90 days.

We represent thousands of supporters - see our petition for context: https://chng.it/BhB5WNR7nf (2,693 individuals signed in support with 60% of them from the Santa Rosa area).

We are exploring avenues to keep the theater operating including the following:

• Having the theater owned by a non-profit we create, the venue to be managed by a local theater operator
• Buying the theater building from a new owner of the shopping center, giving us various options for operations
• Community ownership of the theater and subscription model for ongoing financial viability

We need your help to save this theater by directing the Planning Department and Commission to change the grandfathered use permit which would expire if the space is not operated as a theater within 6 months. Can the City partner with our group to help establish this site as culturally and historically significant as a cinema / movie house? With your help we can change the grandfathered use permit to a permanent status.

The City of Santa Rosa should partner with the community to keep this space a theater. This allows time for our committee to continue to seek Angel investors to support a purchase of the theater. This gives the community via a partnership of public (City) leadership, private funding, and potential non-profit creation the ability to save the Summerfield Cinemas building and rent back to interested operators for various screenings such as True West Film Center Sonoma International Film Festival Mill Valley Film Festival and more.

The above business model is just one of the one of many options that can be selected which includes a traditional business model of leasing to a full price tenant with the financial backing and programming to make it a viable for profit entity.

I look forward to a meeting in the near future with some of the City to discuss this in detail.

Thank you for listening! 

For the Love of Cinema and the Arts in our Community~

Sincerely,
Derek Stefan
co-founder Save Summerfield Cinemas Citizens Committee

*[source cited: City of Santa Rosa Code website: https://ecode360.com/42980683#42980685
CN (Neighborhood Commercial) district. The CN zoning district is applied to areas within and adjacent to Residential neighborhoods appropriate for limited retail and service centers for convenience shopping. Uses in these centers are intended to provide for the day-to-day needs of local neighborhoods and workplaces, but not to be of such scope and variety as to attract substantial traffic volumes from outside the neighborhood. New development is encouraged to include both a residential and nonresidential component as noted by Section 20-23.030 (Commercial district land uses and permit requirements). The CN zoning district is consistent with and implements the Neighborhood Shopping Center land use classification of the General Plan.