What Impact will the Closing of the Surflight Theatre have on Tourism on LBI?

It's too soon to determine what impact the closing of the landmark Surflight Theatre in Beach Haven will have on tourism on Long Beach Island, according to Dana Lancellotti, Director of Ocean County Business Development & Tourism.

"We certainly are saddened to see such as treasure as the Surflight going through this struggle and they've brought some very high quality shows to the LBI region and I know that the tourism has benefited from that. We don't know how this is going to affect us moving forward, but certainly the absence of that theater being there is going to be a sad  thing for people who come to LBI and have known it to be there before and have enjoyed going to performances for years," said Lancellotti.

Lancellotti is hopeful people will move forward and realize what it does to an area when there is a void like the Surflight and spur action to do something to replace it.

Theater operators filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Monday and its the theater's closing Tuesday, according to the Asbury Park Press. The Surflight was faced with more than $2.6 million in debt and was unable to raise $600,000 needed to keep it open this season.

Lancelloti said her office was not given a heads up about the closing. "In the past they have received our tourism grant from the County to help support their events. They have been tourism partners to us in the past, but we were not actually aware that is was coming to this point at this time," she said.

County tourism grants usually range between $500 and $1,500 for particular events, according to Lancellotti.

The closing of the Surflight Theatre comes as a great arts movement emerges in northern Ocean County through money the Grunin Family has donated to Ocean County College in Toms River and the campus' renamed Jay and Linda Grunin Center for the Arts.

"There has already been a tremendous wave of new artists, new events, new shows and new talents and it's opened a lot of doors for the arts up here in northern Ocean County, so while we're saddened to see the opposite happening down in the LBI region, oddly the Grunin Center for the Arts is emerging as a wonderful new and bigger venue," Lancellotti said. "Maybe some how that will trickle down to the LBI region in ways that will help to bring back theater to LBI after all this is said and done," she added.

Lancellotti also pointed out that LBI has many other areas of art to offer, such as the LBI Foundation for the Arts and Sciences and its annual Lighthouse Film Festival.