The futures of two northern Michigan arthouse movie theaters are up in the air.

The Chalfonte Foundation, the Detroit-based nonprofit that acquired the Elk Rapids Cinema last year, announced earlier this month that the Elk Rapids Township Assessor’s Office had denied its request for a property tax exemption. The foundation says the exemption is crucial to keep the cinema’s doors open, and has appealed the matter to the Michigan Tax Tribunal.

“The burden of over $10,000 in summer taxes alone makes it almost impossible for the cinema to continue operating,” the Chalfonte Foundation states in a recently-launched Change.org petition. “Without the exemption, the financial strain could jeopardize the future of this vital community resource.”

Chalfonte President Aaron Timlin is confident the tax tribunal will rule in the nonprofit’s favor. He notes that many arthouse theaters are owned and operated by nonprofits, and that many have property tax exemptions. Local examples include the Lyric Theatre in Harbor Springs and the Bay Theatre in Suttons Bay.

According to Timlin, the assessor’s office denied the exemption request on the grounds that the Elk Rapids Cinema building is “not being solely used for nonprofit purposes.” The sticking point, he says, is that the theater charges admission for films it shows.

“I don't think it's malicious, I just think they’re not understanding the law,” Timlin says of the assessor’s decision. “They're thinking that a nonprofit isn't qualified [for a property tax exemption] if they charge for their services, which just isn’t true.”

The Chalfonte Foundation, which has a mission of ending child poverty and supporting the wellbeing of children, is working to bring programming beyond just film screenings to the Elk Rapids Cinema, including a new FM community radio station in the building’s basement and broadcasts of “The HIP Show,” a soon-to-be-launched morning entertainment and education show for kids.

Township Assessor Karleen Sempert declined to comment on the tax dispute, citing the Chalfonte Foundation’s appeal to the Michigan Tax Tribunal as “active litigation.”

Meanwhile, today marks the 101st day since Traverse City’s Bijou by the Bay went dark. The theater has been closed since May 16, when it cancelled a showing of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes due to a “technical issue.” The Facebook account shared by the Bijou and the Traverse City State Theatre later reported that the issue was a problem with the theater’s projector. There have been no posts on the matter since May 23 and the Bijou has yet to reopen.

Representatives from the Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF), which operates both theaters, have not been transparent about the reasons for the Bijou’s prolonged closure. In late June, The Ticker reported that a shutoff notice had been posted on the theater’s door by Traverse City Light & Power, citing an outstanding account balance of $940.12. When asked about the notice, Angie Forton, executive director of the State and Bijou, sent The Ticker screen captures of TCFF’s accounts with TCLP, which showed that the Bijou’s outstanding bill had recently been paid. In that same email, though, Forton neglected to answer questions The Ticker had posed about the status of the Bijou or plans to reopen it. TCFF Founder Michael Moore also did not respond to requests for comment on that story nor again for this story.

While TCFF owns the State Theatre, the Bijou by the Bay building is the property of the City of Traverse City, which signed a 10-year lease extension with TCFF in 2021. Under that contract, the city requires TCFF to “maintain a minimum program of at least one film showing per day for at least 200 days per year.”

City Attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht says city leaders are also in the dark about what’s going on with the Bijou.

“We have been trying to contact the TCFF this summer as well, without success,” Trible-Laucht tells The Ticker, adding that she expects the issue “will be forthcoming for [city] commission discussion in the near future.”

Despite the Bijou’s closure, TCFF has continued to operate the State Theatre, moving forward with the theater’s “TCFF Tuesdays” film series and showing Hollywood classics every weekend. It’s not been business as usual, though: Despite last summer’s popular run of new films like Barbie and Oppenheimer – Moore told The Ticker in December that Barbie was “our largest grossing film of all time” – the State has only screened one new release in the past two months: the Channing Tatum/Scarlett Johannson rom-com Fly Me to the Moon.

And summer plans that Forton or Moore had previously discussed appear to have fallen by the wayside: In emails in June, Forton teased that TCFF was planning “a mini-fest at the end of July showing ‘the Best of the Fest," which never occurred.

In April, Moore told the audience at the kickoff showing for the spring season of TCFF Tuesdays that TCFF was preparing for big theater preservation efforts at the State this summer.

“The [State Theatre] marquee will be 75 years old this summer,” Moore said. “If I could take you up on a ladder and show you just how rusted out this thing is and how many times we've had to call people in to fix this or that or whatever. They are all telling us we need to tear [the marquee] down and put up a bright digital LED. We're not doing that. This theater, this is a historical landmark. We are going to apply this year for that status both nationally and with the state. I want to make sure that long after we're all gone that nobody messes with it, that it has to maintain its 1940s art deco design.”

Moore went on to say that the bid for restoring the marquee was $89,000 and he was in the process of “looking for somebody to fund it.”