Free Movie Night festivities, from the Santa Barbara Drive-In Facebook page

Some drive-in closures tease out slowly, like the Cascade in West Chicago. Most are like a phone that stops ringing; you only know for sure when it doesn’t reopen the following spring. The Santa Barbara Drive-In in Goleta CA just gave us a rare form of sadness – the closure that’s a bolt from the blue.

As first reported in the Santa Barbara Independent, the drive-in announced on its Facebook page Friday, “Thank you for supporting the Santa Barbara Drive-In for the past nine years. We are now closed.”

This was a West Wind drive-in, one of several owned by Syufy Enterprises, and the announcement came just hours after it held its Free Movie Night, an annual company-wide tradition that primes the pump for summer viewing season. The Independent said that it couldn’t reach Syufy for comment on its sudden action. Indeed, as I type three days later, the Santa Barbara is still included on the West Wind web site.

When I stopped by for a virtual visit two years ago, I pointed out that the site doesn’t offer many other options. The Santa Barbara Airport immediately to the west probably prevents anything too tall from replacing the drive-in, and creeks to the east and west prevent encroachment from anything else.

I have no info yet on this event, but my interactions with Syufy have always shown it to be a class organization. I remember that years ago it regretted having to close a different drive-in because it couldn’t renew the lease with the landowner, and I can’t imagine any other reason for it to fold. I’ll update this post when I hear more.

How the drive-in looked earlier this season. Photo courtesy of FLAX.

There have been other examples of drive-in theaters run by a non-profit group, but the latest out of California is different. The charity in this case is the France Los Angeles Exchange (FLAX), which promotes mutual understanding between Southern California and France through the arts. On Monday and Tuesday nights for three months, September through November, FLAX is showing double features in a parking lot with a pop-up screen erected against a wall.

The Tin Flats Drive-In, as it were, is quite small, with room for just 10 cars plus 30 seats. Its scheduled movies, such as The Tuba Thieves, appear to be light on drive-in friendly explosions and space battles. On the other hand, not only is this drive-in free, it also includes free iced tea, popcorn, and candy.

If this FLAX Drive-In series returns next year, and I hope it does, it would become a serious contender for inclusion on the drive-in theater list. It’s a permanent setting, viewers can drive their own cars in to watch, and it has a regular schedule, so it ticks off all the boxes. Meanwhile, if you’re in the neighborhood, you really ought to sign up to reserve a space and check out an unusual, artistic drive-in experience.