Letters

YOUR report in last week’s Guardian left me somewhat bewildered. According to Mr Sharma, the new owner of the ABC cinema, one of the conditions of the sale by the Odeon group was a restrictive clause in the contract forbidding the screening of English-language films. (I assume he can show any other language films from France, Sweden, Italy, Greece, Turkey or Iran and so on).

Yet my first instinct would be to challenge the clause as anti-competitive and contrary to UK competition law. Once a company exits a market, it can’t actively put barriers in the way of others prepared to trade in that market.

Also it would have been quite legitimate for Mr Sharma to take on the cinema and open it as an Asian-language only cinema if, as it appears, he is able to do that and make it pay, without being tied to any agreement.

ABC/Odeon would risk him changing his mind later on, but I’d have thought that was less of a risk than having the contract referred to the competition authorities and have the restrictive clause struck down, leaving Mr Sharma to show all categories of films unencumbered.

If, as is claimed, ABC Odeon doesn’t see a future in the Hoe Street cinema but wants to attract the unsatisfied demand to its other cinemas in Woodford and Gants Hill (not a real possibility given the journey times and price difference), then all it had to do was to close it and not sell it on. But maybe the cinema’s listed status has something to do with it. Selling it as an on-going cinema business means no awkward planning considerations, or change of use hearings.

The Office of Fair Trading might be interested in the competition issues this raises. I’d certainly like to learn more about.

BARRY COIDAN, Milton Road,

Walthamstow.

IT was with sadness that I read of the imminent closure of the ABC cinema, not helped by the fact that the new owner is barred from showing films catering for the general population.

Its loss in this capacity will be a further contribution to falling amenities in this borough and to Hoe Street in particular. Time was when this was a prosperous road, with well presented shops and other useful services, unlike now, when apart from some exceptions it is an even more shabby area holding little for local people. After all, how many fast food outlets and shops selling cheap toilet rolls does a town need?

I fear that unless major changes take place to improve the infrastructure and stop the downward spiral, it will be a case of will the last person to leave Walthamstow please turn out the light.

T. FOSTER, Barrett Road, Walthamstow.

I READ with horror that, during all the debate around the redevelopment of Walthamstow High Street, the only remaining cinema in the borough had been secretly sold off last August.

It seems Odeon was especially concerned that the Hoe Street ABC should not continue to function as a cinema, presumably because that would hinder its pitch in bidding to run the ten-screen cinema proposed as part of the shopping centre redevelopment planned under the New Opportunities for Walthamstow (NOW) scheme.

However, while your report says showing Asian films is a concession, it also says there is a clause in the contract that says no English-language films are to be screened.

Since there is as yet no firm proposal for any alternative English-language cinema in Walthamstow — at least until the council cabinet steamrollers NOW through, which could take up to three years .-. there can be no justification for banning English-language films from the present existing cinema.

Given that the ABC venue has three screens, surely such a deal is not only a restriction of free market trading principles, but could also be held to be discriminatory.

More importantly, if the new cinema proposal goes ahead, it would mean the loss of a modern children’s playground and a splendid avenue of Victorian lime trees, and also probably of the small field behind the present library which has long been used for family funfairs, local events such as the Stansted Air- port jobs fair, and importantly as a landing pad for the Medical Emergency Helicopter (based at the Royal London Hospital).

Many people are also concerned to know the intended fate of the rare historical theatre organ in the ABC cinema under its new management.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED.

MY heart sank when I saw my Guardian (November 23 issue).

I grew up with the Granada cinema. Good old Saturday morning pictures was the best with all the usual short films, Rocket Man, Woody Woodpecker, and the weekly songs we all sang together like We are the Grenadiers and We’re having fun sitting in the back seat kissing and a cuddling with Fred, and the familiar face of Ernie Mills always there to keep the kids in line a very dedicated man.

LYN YOUNG, a regular reader and Grenadier.