Huntington Beach Playhouse May Lose Digs If Rent Hike OKd

After seven years in what was supposed to be a permanent home, the Huntington Beach Playhouse may be forced to move from the city’s Central Library if a proposed rent increase of $100,000 a year is approved, theater officials said Tuesday.

The City Council will ultimately decide on the rent increase--from $29,000 to $129,000--proposed by the library staff to offset city-ordered budget cuts. But one council member said the group will probably be unable to keep using the theater for the same rent.

In May the council will hear a report on all nonprofit groups that have business dealings with the city.

If the council approves the rent hike, theater officials say they will have no option but to find another home. “It’s an eviction notice,” said playhouse treasurer Don Stanton.

The playhouse, a fixture in the city for 37 years, had drifted from a barn to a school auditorium to a shopping center until the city approved an $8.7-million expansion of the library in 1991. The group moved into the library’s new 320-seat theater in 1994.

The expected revenue from rent and ticket sales to help pay for the expansion never materialized, however, and the library board says it can no longer afford to subsidize the playhouse’s use of the theater.

The library board has suggested that the playhouse increase ticket prices by as much as $2, but theater officials say that is as unappealing as a rent increase.

“We would lose a majority of our customers, which are senior citizens and students,” Stanton said. “We want to keep our ticket prices low enough to do other programs,” such as scholarships and acting classes.

Ron Hayden, director of library services, said the playhouse was offered a three-year lease in October at the current rent, with two-year renewals, but with several requirements theater officials would not agree to. Under that rejected agreement, the playhouse would have had to submit an annual financial statement and business plan to show that it was in good standing as a nonprofit group and was doing everything possible to raise funds. Playhouse officials refused, Hayden said.

“We have our own board of directors,” Stanton said. “We would become part of the library, and we objected to that strongly.”

Playhouse officials say that the library board is now using a technicality to justify the higher rent.

When the original lease was signed, it included an option for two, five-year renewals. But the theater group apparently failed to file a required notice to exercise its renewal option on time, Hayden said, and the lease expired in December 1999. Since then, the group has been renting on a month-to-month basis.

Stanton countered: “We have a board member who swore he sent it in and has a copy of the letter.”

But the letter may not have made a difference in the face of the city-mandated budget cuts.

The city was recently successfully sued by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. over the use of the property taxes it collected. If the city loses its appeal, it may have to refund as much as $25 million to property owners.

As a precaution against those possible refunds, the council directed each city department to immediately identify a 5% budget cut.

“Because of this Jarvis lawsuit, as far as I’m concerned there are no sacred cows,” said Councilwoman Debbie Cook. “Everything’s up for grabs as far as cuts go.”

A council subcommittee has been studying all nonprofits that pay rent to the city for the use of its facilities or land and has found a wide discrepancy in the amount paid by the groups.

Councilman Peter M. Green, a member of the subcommittee, said the discrepancies are unfair.”We should treat all nonprofits equally,” he said.

Green said he hopes to have a full report for the council by its May 21 meeting.