The Brief

Let's take a trip down memory lane and eventually find ourselves parked in front of our favorite outdoor movie screen. Something about snacking on popcorn from the passenger seat of a car makes the cinema experience all the more memorable.

LAist looked back at the history of drive-in theaters in the Southland, their eventual downfall, and why they hold a particularly special place in Southern California's heart, on our daily news program AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM.

The origins of the drive-in phenomenon

Historian and filmmaker April Wright, who directed the documentaries Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American Drive-in Movie and Back to the Drive-in, says the very first drive-in theater opened in 1933 near Camden, New Jersey, but Southern California was next at bat. The first one here sat at Pico and Westwood boulevards, next up was The San-Val located in the Burbank area.

Los Angeles's first drive-in theater at10860 West Pico, Los Angeles in 1934.

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"Dick" Whittington Studio Collection of Negatives and Photographs

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The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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“This is like 1934, but then they really grew after World War II,” Wright said. “That's when all the neighborhoods expanded with the GI Bill and all of that. A lot of drive-ins were part of that plan.”

The end of the drive-in era

The rise of home video, cable TV and suburban multiplexes spelled doom for drive-ins. Plus, land became too expensive for many trying to operate the theaters. By 1996, greater L.A. had only an estimated nine theaters.

The COVID-19 pandemic renewed hope for these relics. Despite that though, theaters continue to disappear.

“There were over 5,000 drive-ins at the peak, and we are now down to only about 280 something,” Wright said. “There were about 305 going into the pandemic, so we've actually lost some since the pandemic, despite the popularity.”

Here are the 3 remaining SoCal drive-ins

As far as traditional drive-in cinemas go, there's not much left. Just one remains in L.A. County, and there still are two in Riverside.

Paramount Drive-In Theatres

Paramount Drive-In Theatres on Aug. 3, 2020 ahead of a birthday celebration for Kevin Smith.

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Albert L. Ortega

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Getty Images

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• Location: 7770 Rosecrans Ave, Paramount
• Phone: (562) 630-7469
• Website
  

The Rubidoux

The Rubidoux photographed in 1978.

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John Margolies

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Courtesy Library of Congress

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• Location: 3770 Opal St, Riverside
• Phone: (951) 683-4455
• Website

The Van Buren

The Van Buren Drive-In in Riverside.

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April Wright

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• Location: 3035 Van Buren Boulevard, Riverside
• Phone: (951) 688-2829
• Website
  

The experience marks the memories

Going to the drive-in wasn’t always about the movie itself, but rather the experience that would leave lifelong memories. The neon signs, the smell of the popcorn, cramming as many of your friends as possible under a blanket on nights when they charged entry by the car.

SoCal residents shared their favorite drive-in memories during a conversation on AirTalk, LAist 89.3's daily news program.

Van Nuys Drive-In Theater in 1964.

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Kelly, Howard D.

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Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library

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Bill in El Sereno: "My greatest drive-in memories started at the Danbury Drive-In in Danbury, Connecticut. I vividly remember seeing Fantastic Voyage on the big screen and sneaking up to the back edge of the lot on foot with my friends to watch The Godfather. Years later, we relived the drive-in experience at the Rubidoux in Riverside, taking our child in the station wagon and sneaking in our dog."

Sid in Torrance: "I went to the Van Nuys Drive-In to watch Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston when he was about a 10 to one underdog. We were with a bunch of other guys from my fraternity. I can't remember how many we had in the car, but I know that right before we got in, we put a couple guys in the trunk when we paid for the car."

Margaret in Long Beach: "Our first child was 9 weeks old. The three of us went to see Apocalypse Now, a spirited movie. We all slept through the entire movie!"

Adriene in Granada Hills: "I remember our mom dressing my brother & I in our pajamas to get ready to go to the Van Nuys Drive-In. We'd drive there in our '52 Ford station wagon "Ol' Yeller', go over the bumps in the parking lot and park with the tailgate facing the screen. The best part was singing "Let's all go to the lobby" on the way there and swinging on the swings! Great memories!"

Listen to the conversation

...for more great memories!

The crisp, cool weather continues Tuesday as the region prepares for another Santa Ana wind event on Wednesday.

Highs along the coast on Tuesday will be from 63 to 69 degrees, and up to 72 degrees for the valleys.

The Inland Empire will see daytime highs of up to 71 degrees.

In the Antelope Valley, there will be some areas of frost in the early morning, with temperatures ranging from 56 to 62 degrees.

Beach hazards

You'll want to avoid swimming in the ocean because of strong rip currents and breaking waves from high surf. Minor flooding of beach parking lots is possible. These conditions will last until Friday morning for the Orange County coast, and until Saturday morning for L.A. County beaches.

No burn alert in effect

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has issued a no burn alert for most of SoCal until 11:59 p.m. because of high air pollution. That means you should avoid any burning of wood, including fireplaces or manufactured logs made from wax or paper. The alert applies to O.C. and L.A. County's non-desert areas, as well as Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Santa Ana’s Ayuda Sin Fronteras — a fund to support immigrant families affected by ICE sweeps — could more than double with an additional $150,000 influx of city dollars if approved by the City Council Tuesday night.

The federal immigration sweeps have increased fear among immigrant families, prompting some to avoid workplaces and other public areas. The fund goes toward helping those families pay for up to one month’s worth of housing expenses, including past due rent and utility bills.

The program was created in July following heavy immigration enforcement that rattled many communities in Southern California, including Orange County’s only sanctuary city — Santa Ana.

When it launched, the city approved an initial $100,000 for housing assistance. In October, the City Council directed the city manager to seek additional funding for approval. Those funds were pulled from several city department employee vacancies, including the city attorney’s office, the Santa Ana Police Department and others.

Ayuda Sin Fronteras has supported 232 residents as of Oct. 21, according to city officials.

Mayor Valerie Amezcua said she will revisit the fund as much as possible to make sure the city is doing all it can to support community members affected by immigration enforcement.

“We need to make sure that we take good care of our community because there is a need,” Amezcua told LAist. “There's a need for rental assistance, for food, for utilities. As the mayor and council, we're committed to helping out our community.”

Who qualifies? 

The funds are reserved for Santa Ana families with members who have been detained, deported or financially hurt by immigration enforcement. Families will need to provide proof of immigration enforcement activity or a signed third-party verification form.

The program requires identification of all household members, but the city says it does not require proof of citizenship.

Applicants need to be renters at or below moderate income. A family of five, for example, needs to make no more than $177,000 a year. The city’s income chart can be found here.

Other help is available 

In Orange County, Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento created the Orange County Liberty Fund in partnership with community organizations, bringing together $1.5 million to support immigrant families in navigating the legal system.

In September, the Costa Mesa City Council launched a $200,000 immigrant legal defense fund to help those detained by ICE within the city.

Outside Orange County, the cities of Los Angeles and Long Beach, along with L.A. County, have asked for support from local philanthropists to donate to immigrant support funds.

After Los Angeles moved to significantly lower yearly increases in most of the city’s apartments, some City Council members now want to change the rules again. This time, they’re hoping to give small landlords the ability to raise rents more than their corporate counterparts.

On Tuesday, the council is scheduled to vote on a proposal that would let small landlords — those who own 10 units or fewer — raise rents by an additional 1% each year. The idea was put forward by Councilmembers John Lee and Monica Rodriguez.

“This modest adjustment recognizes the difference between a family that owns a few units and a large corporate operator,” Lee said in a statement to LAist. “Our goal is to keep small landlords in the system and prevent the loss of rent-controlled homes.”

While the idea is gaining support from landlord groups, tenant advocates say the proposal would create a cumbersome and unfair, two-tier system in which some renters have to pay more than others.

The changes coming for LA rent control 

In a culmination of years of debate, the City Council voted last month to lower the maximum allowable rent increase in the city’s rent-controlled housing to 4% per year. That’s down from the previous maximum of 10%.

Lee, whose district includes the northwest San Fernando Valley, voted against the changes after expressing concern about how the lower increases would affect the bottom line of small rental property owners. Rodriguez, whose district includes the northeast San Fernando Valley, supported the changes, but said more should be done to keep “mom-and-pop” landlords afloat.

“The motion proposes a modest adjustment to help ensure these small landlords remain viable, rather than being pushed out and accelerating the further corporatization of housing in Los Angeles,” Rodriguez said in a statement to LAist.

Landlord groups said the proposed 1% increase could help at the margins, but small landlords would still have to contend with insurance premiums and maintenance costs that have been rising faster than overall economic inflation.

“Throwing a bone in the form of an additional 1% to smaller owners is necessary but will be insufficient to keep many owners in the housing business,” Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, said in an email. “More and more, owners are being forced to look for the exit ramp in the city of Los Angeles.”

Do small landlords really have it harder?

But researchers paid to investigate the issue have not found evidence that small landlords face stronger headwinds than corporate owners. A city-commissioned report by the Economic Roundtable, an independent research nonprofit, found no significant differences between the financial health of small and large landlord operations in L.A.

“The study found that, in general, small landlords are not suffering greater distress,” Anna Ortega, who is with the city’s Housing Department, said during a recent City Council meeting.

Tenant advocates with the group Keep L.A. Housed opposed the 1% bump for small landlords, saying it would be unfair to charge some tenants more every year simply because they’re renting from a non-corporate owner. The coalition also said enforcing the rules would be difficult.

“Allowing small landlords to self-certify creates the opportunity for abuse, as some will fraudulently claim the status and charge incorrect (and potentially illegal) rent increases to already rent-burdened tenants,” said Pablo Estupiñan, a Keep L.A. Housed member and an organizer with the nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.

The rules in LA and beyond

The city’s rent control rules generally apply to rental units built before October 1978, though some newly built apartments are covered as well. About 70% of the city’s apartments are subject to the rent hike caps.

Some other Southern California jurisdictions with rent control allow small landlords to increase rents more than larger owners.

L.A. County allows small landlords in unincorporated areas to increase rents an extra 1%. The city of Inglewood allows owners of buildings with four apartments or fewer to increase rents by an extra 5% compared with owners of buildings with five or more units.

Los Angeles’ regional homelessness agency is working to find ways to keep thousands of people in their homes, while complying with new federal funding restrictions on permanent housing.

The governing board for the L.A. Homeless Services Authority voted Monday to start the process of reallocating about $130 million in federal funding currently being spent on permanent housing to other projects meant to serve unhoused Angelenos.

Because of new funding restrictions from the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development, known as HUD, about 5,000 households in the county will lose their rental subsidies, according to several LAHSA officials who spoke at a commission meeting Monday.

Those changes, along with state and county funding shortfalls for homeless services, threaten to drastically worsen the region’s homelessness crisis, they said.

"The fact of the matter is there’s going to be a tremendous and terrible impact on people, on agencies, on landlords,” said Nathaniel VerGow, LAHSA’s chief program officer.

Officials said they’re scrambling to maximize federal funding under the new guidelines while also advocating against the new HUD policy.

“It is a cliff and it feels catastrophic, but I think it forces us as a region to figure out how to save ourselves,” LAHSA Commission Chair Amber Sheikh said.

The funding challenge

Most federal homelessness dollars flow into the L.A. region through the Continuum of Care program, managed by HUD.

The Los Angeles region is eligible for more than $260 million in federal funding under that program in the coming fiscal year, including $217 million for existing projects.

But no more than 30% of those funds can go toward permanent housing projects, according to a “notice of funding opportunity” HUD issued last month.

That’s a challenge for L.A. County, because 90% of regional HUD funds currently cover people’s rent, according to LASHA officials.

Instead, L.A. and other cities and counties must spend the bulk of their federal funds on other interventions, including transitional housing and street outreach.

HUD officials have said the policy is meant to encourage self-sufficiency.

At Monday’s meeting, Commissioner Justin Szlasa urged his colleagues to consider larger funding trends.

“ There's actually a 23% increase in available funding from HUD, the federal government,” he said. “It just doesn't work with the way that we normally have done things here.”

“We need to find, in this crisis, a way to be constructive about this,” Szlasa added.

HUD policy changes

HUD released its new notice of funding opportunity last month and rescinded a previous two-year funding agreement.

Opponents have concerns with the federal housing department’s move away from “housing first” approaches. They also said HUD rolled out the changes without providing enough time to prepare service providers and clients for disruptions.

Last week, 21 states, including California, sued HUD, claiming the new federal policies “essentially guarantee that tens of thousands of formerly homeless individuals and families will be evicted back into homelessness.”

This week, a group of cities and homelessness organizations also sued over the changes. Plaintiffs include the city and county of San Francisco. The Continuum of Care for San Francisco was awarded $56 million in federal funding for Fiscal Year 2024.

Approximately 91% of that funding supports permanent housing projects, according to the complaint.

What’s next?

The LAHSA Commission voted Monday to approve its request for applications for existing and new projects.

Providers must submit applications to LAHSA over the next two weeks, and LAHSA has until Jan. 14 to craft and submit a new application to HUD.

The agency is now talking with 130 contractors about the transition.

LAHSA is also working with some permanent supportive housing providers to convert their programs to transitional housing instead, officials said.

People who were in permanent housing projects aren’t eligible for transitional housing under HUD’s guidelines because they're not considered unhoused, VerGow said.

The commission also reviewed a policy for ranking project applications and prioritizing them for federal funding. Officials said that policy has to be approved at a LAHSA Commission subcommittee on Dec. 10.

Funds are expected to be awarded in May 2026.