The marquee above Capitol Liquors on Main Street is one of the landmarks of Middletown, Conn. Currently it reads “Liquors, Kegs, Beer & Soda,” but in the past it advertised some of the greatest films of the golden age of American cinema.
In the past ten years the marquee, the package store beneath it, and the adjacent theater have all become the center of a multi-million dollar power-struggle involving the University, the mayor of Middletown and an opera company from East Haddam, Conn.
The history of Capitol Cinema, now Capitol Liquors, began about 80 years ago. In the 1920s the cinema opened as a Shakespearian production house. It was soon converted into a movie theater, which ran first-run films until July of 1975. At that point, the theater was closed and the lobby converted into a package store. In November of 1991, Joe Salvatore purchased the package store.
“[This] is where it gets juicy,” Salvatore said.
Salvatore had just sold a soda business when he was approached by Sebastian Garafalo, who at that time was the mayor of Middletown.
“He [Garafalo] said to me that in 1990 the city of Middletown along with Wesleyan University offered him $880,000 for this building [Capitol Liquors] because they were interested in putting a fine arts center here,” Salvatore said. “I paid $420,000 for the building. We were supposed to sell the building to Wesleyan University and the town of Middletown for around $800,000, and we were all supposed to make money.”
Salvatore, who said he had never been interested in getting into the package store business, invested over $400,000 into Capitol and waited to hear from Garafalo. After not hearing anything, the deal fell through and Salvatore was left with an unwanted liquor store and a massive run-down theater.
With the election of a new mayor in 2000, new plans were made for Capitol Liquors, according to Salvatore. Current mayor Domenique Thornton made an offer to the Goodspeed Opera Company in East Haddam to move them to Middletown. Included in the offer was a five million dollar grant as well as a downtown location free of charge if the company was willing to move their entire operation to Middletown.
Two locations in Middletown were proposed for the opera house. One was the former courthouse on DeKoven Drive and the other was the Capitol Liquors building.
The Goodspeed Opera Company has staged plays at the large Victorian opera house in East Haddam for over 127 years. The company generates over $40 million annually for the state of Connecticut as well as roughly $40,000 per year in revenues for the town of East Haddam.
Recently, a committee of town members assembled to discuss how to move the Godspeed Opera Company into downtown Middletown. In addition to several municipal administrators, the committee included President Doug Bennet and his wife Midge Bennet.
According to Salvatore, Mayor Thornton has tried various tactics to acquire Capitol Liquors from Salvatore. In February this year, the Capitol Liquors marquee and theater were examined before the town’s Common Council as one of 16 run-down properties in Middletown. Salvatore was given 30 days to renovate or tear down these structures in order to comply with town regulations. If Capitol Liquors does not comply, the town could seize the property, in which case Salvatore would receive no compensation.
In a 2003 issue of the Middletown Press, Mayor Thornton said she planned to seize Capitol Liquors.
“We are doing it because it is a blighted property,” Thornton said in the article. “We’ve been asking the owners to fix the building up for years, but it’s awful. The wings are gone and the marquee is falling down.”
Salvatore was given an extension on the 30-day period, however, owing to the classification of the theater as a historical structure. According to Salvatore, as of April, he and Thornton have negotiated, and Capitol Liquors will not be seized. If the city does decide to buy out Capitol Liquors and the adjacent theater, Salvatore expects to be offered the current value of the property.
“It’s not going to be a very sweet deal for me, not at all,” Salvatore said, although he said it was not sure of the exact amount of the settlement.
The Goodspeed board of trustees was expected to give Middletown a decision by January of 2004, but as of yet, no such decision has been made.
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