HAVANA, May 4 (Santiago Doubuché, UPECI) - Many neighborhood movie theaters in Havana are decrepit and do not even meet safety standards.

In the Continental, in 10 de Octubre municipality, the emergency exit doors have been shuttered with steel bars, there are no fire extinguishers and the screen is torn. The México, in Cerro municipality and the Paraná, in El Cotorro, are in similar condition.

In the La Lisa, in the municipality of the same name, customers can see the movie or the sky from their seats.

In recent years more than 40 percent of the movie houses in the capital have been shut down or converted into dingy discotheques for customers who pay with pesos.

Several people who work for the ICAIC (Cuban Film Institute) say what really happened is that the government could not operate these theaters profitably and either converted them or let them run down by withholding maintenance and renovation funds. As a matter of fact, workers in this division of ICAIC are the lowest paid, at 148 pesos a month.

Versión original en español

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