GRAND RAPIDS, MI - A lobby bar serving drinks to moviegoers is proposed for Celebration Cinema North. Plans filed with the city call for a 16-seat bar with table seating for 40 people.

The theater chain's existing liquor permit at 2121 Celebration Drive off East Beltline Avenue allows for alcohol sales at special events. A request coming to the Grand Rapids Planning Commission on Thursday, Feb. 11, seeks approval to sell drinks during the course of normal business, both at the bar and for consumption in theater auditoriums.

Celebration currently serves alcohol to moviegoers at four locations, according to documents filed with the city, but none in Grand Rapids.

"Throughout the United States and the State of Michigan, successful motion picture operators, including Celebration, are meeting modern moviegoers' desire to have a special night out," wrote Kenyon Shane, Celebration's vice president of operations-revenue development.

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Celebration in 2007 received permission to sell alcohol at the former Studio 28 on 28th Street SW in Wyoming. That movie theater closed the following year and was razed in 2014.

The theater's application states that alcohol sales, along with other amenities like new seating, are needed to attract "today's discriminating moviegoers."

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