In 1999, Petaluma’s Phoenix Theater faced an existential threat. Northern California’s oldest continuously operating showhouse, the venue had witnessed nearly a century of entertainment ranging from stage plays and vaudeville acts to silent films, CinemaScope and rock concerts. Now, it had been purchased by a developer with plans to convert it into an office complex.[1]
To some, that came as welcome news. While fans viewed the theater as a juggernaut of Sonoma County’s alternative music scene and a creative hangout for teens, critics saw a dangerous and disreputable den of iniquity.
The disparity was nothing new. The theater had been the center of heated debates over artistic freedom and morality since its opening in 1904 as the Hill Opera House.
The vision of Josie Hill, wealthy widow of Petaluma banker William Hill, the Hill Opera House was initially hailed as one of the finest playhouses in the Bay Area. Its opulent interior and first-rate musicals and stage plays found immediate favor among Petaluma’s crème de la crème.[2]
However, their patronage was not enough to turn a profit, leaving Hill to book a stream of traveling vaudeville acts.
Evenings of vaudeville were interspersed with short, 10-minute silent films, in a nod to the nickelodeons just hitting town in 1907. Called by some “the true theater of the people,” the “shorts” drew from Wild West shows, melodramas and comic strips. Many of them were laced with salacious sexual imagery and risqué humor, poking fun at bumbling cops, corrupt politicians and intrusive upper-class reformers.[3]
Their popularity with immigrants and working-class men and women, thanks in large part to their cheap admission fees, soon drew the ire of anti-immigrant groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), of which Josie Hill was a prominent member. In 1909, the Hill theater switched to featuring longer educational and entertaining films that met the standards of middle class taste.[4]
By 1912, the nickelodeons had been eclipsed by feature-length films. That year, Dr. John A. McNear, Jr., son of Petaluma’s most prominent capitalist, and his sister-in-law, Lulu Egan, opened the Mystic Theater in the new McNear Building on Main Street.
A few months later, they also assumed management of the Hill Opera House, running it as a live performance theater with limited film showings, and the Mystic as a cinema with occasional vaudeville acts.[5]
Motion picture critics like the WCTU, who referred to their efforts as “mothering the movies,” continued to call for judging movies on moral, not aesthetic, grounds, as they were luring young people into dark, crowded theaters to engage in “illicit lovemaking and iniquity.” In 1915, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed, ruling films commercial endeavors excluded from First Amendment protection.[6]
To avoid legal censorship, the movie industry responded by agreeing to rigorously censor their films. McNear boasted he only showed family-oriented, censored films at his theaters, but with the arrival of the Roaring Twenties, that became a slippery slope.
As films became more popular and theater attendance soared, new theater chains began building lavish movie palaces equipped with the latest in film and sound technology. In 1924, Josie Hill’s heirs sold the Hill Opera House to one such chain, T&D Jr. Enterprises, operated by a Syrian immigrant named Mike Naify.[7]
Naify demolished everything in the opulent playhouse except its original four walls, creating a 1,078-seat movie house he rechristened the California Theater. He assigned management to his brother, Sergius “Doc” Naify, a physician from Syria. Doc operated the theater for the next 34 years. A no-nonsense guardian of the theater, he committed himself to making sure everyone felt welcomed.[8]
The arrival of “talkies” in 1929 set off another spike in theater attendance, only to be reversed by the Great Depression. To lure audiences back, movie studios resorted to making films with adult themes touching on sex, violence and other less-than-wholesome topics. That sparked theater boycotts from religious groups, forcing the movie industry to adopt a new set of decency standards known as the “Hays Code.” Banned from films were profanity, explicit adultery, sympathetic treatment of criminals and dancing with “indecent” moves.[9]
Through the 1950s, the California Theater served as Petaluma’s premier movie palace, introducing wide-angle CinemaScope in 1954, and undergoing a complete remodel in 1957 after a major fire in the building. In 1968, the growing popularity of television having undermined the movie business, the Naifys sold the theater to Dan Tocchini, a second-generation theater operator from Santa Rosa. He changed its name to the Showcase.[10]
His timing was fortuitous, as in 1968 movie industry also dropped the Hays Code, replacing it with a new system of film ratings that allowed moviegoers to choose their desired level of censorship. This time they were protected by the Supreme Court, which in 1952 reversed its earlier decision, recognizing movies as a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment.[11]
Freed from the shackles of censorship, a new wave of young directors emerged in Hollywood, rekindling a film renaissance. With television heavily censored, cinemas suddenly had a new leg up. By the early 1970s, sexually explicit films with R- and X-ratings began showing in mainstream cinemas, including the Showcase. “Movies do not corrupt a society,” Tocchini, the Showcase’s owner, said, “they only reflect a society.”[12]
By the late 1970s, with video rentals eroding theater attendance, Hollywood turned to large multiplex theaters offering film choices, sidelining single-screen theaters like the Showcase. In 1979, a group of investors purchased the Showcase, renovating it into a performing arts center they renamed the Phoenix. Unable to turn a profit, in 1981, they sold the theater to Ken Frankel, a Marin County musician and real estate broker.[13]
Frankel restored the Phoenix to being both a cinema and a live music hall. When that didn’t work, he turned it into a $1 discount house, featuring second-run films. In 1984, he hired Tom Gaffey, Jr. as the Phoenix’s manager. Gaffey began his theater career in junior high, working behind the concession stand at the Showcase before moving up to assistant manager in high school. He took the job after selling a movie theater he operated in Cloverdale.[14]
In an effort to turn a profit, in 1987 the Phoenix introduced weekend teen dances set to music videos. The sudden influx of 1,000 teenagers downtown on a Saturday night led to complaints of traffic and loitering, and the exposure of drugs and underage drinking, echoing censorship advocates at the turn of the century who focused on the vulnerability of youths.
Petaluma’s city council moved to shut the theater down on the grounds it lacked a permit for the dances. The Phoenix argued that as a historic entertainment venue, it didn’t need one.[15]
After a year of legal battles, during which the theater was shuttered, the two parties settled out of court, allowing the dances to proceed with adequate security. Shortly after the Phoenix reopened, Frankel turned the operation over to Gaffey and sold the building to his mother, Florence Bower.[16]
Gaffey embraced Doc Naify’s credo of making everyone feel welcomed. He moved the theater away from film and back to being a live music venue, featuring a broad soundscape from rock, metal, jazz and blues, to ska, reggae and hip hop. The Phoenix became not only an incubator for local garage bands, but also a springboard for rising big-name bands like Primus and Green Day.[17]
Gaffey also opened the doors of the theater to teens after school, providing a gritty, post-grunge sanctuary replete with skateboard ramps, a video arcade, and a place to practice music, do homework or just hang out. Many teens also received on the job training in ticket sales, facility operation, light and sound operation and concert set-up, giving them a sense of responsibility and empowerment.[18]
For the community at large, the Phoenix offered art programs, musical instruction, AA meetings, a teen health center, poetry readings, seances, holiday concerts, wrestling matches and special dress-up showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.[19]
In doing so, Gaffey says he merely unleashed the liberating creative spirit inherent in the building since its early days, and then stepped out of the way.[20]
Preserving that creative spirit is what drew supporters together in 1999 to save the building from being converted into an office complex. Their efforts resulted in four local telecom engineers generously buying out the developer’s position, and helping convert the Phoenix Center into a nonprofit organization, which it has remained for the past 25 years.[21]
Those years have not passed without the Phoenix drawing the episodic wrath of parts of the community. But, as the theater’s 120-year history demonstrates, creative freedom is not without its risks. Generations of Petaluma teens will no doubt testify that those risks have been well worth the gains.[22]
A version of this story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 6, 2024.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Phoenix to Close Dec. 1st,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 10, 1999.
[2] “Hill Opera House is Finest in the State,” Petaluma Argus, October 6, 1904; “Dedication Grand Event,” Petaluma Argus, December 6, 1904; “Wednesday Night’s Big Vaudeville Show,” Petaluma Courier, March 3, 1905; “Hill Opera House Now in Vaudeville,” Petaluma Argus, July 26, 1907: Note: during this time there are three nickelodeons in Petaluma—the Gem, the Star, and the American, and the Unique Theater on Fourth street is also showing vaudeville and shorts.
[3] Hill Opera House ad, Petaluma Courier, July 26, 1907; Hill Opera House ad, Petaluma Courier, August, 1907; Nancy Rosenbloom, “Progressive Reform, Censorship, and the Motion Picture Industry 1909-1917,” Popular Culture and Political Change in Modern America, Ronald Edsforth and Larry Bennett, eds. (NY: SUNY Press, 1991), p. 44; Alison M. Parker, “Mothering the Movies,” Movies Censorship and American Culture, Francis G. Couvares, ed. (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006), p. 75; Desirée J. Garcia, “Subversive Sounds: Ethnic Spectatorship and Boston’s Nickelodeon Theatres, 1907-1914,” Movie Business Journal, (Indiana Press), Vol. 19, No. 3, (2007), pp. 213-227.
[4] Parker, p. 74; “The W.C.T.U.,” Petaluma Courier, September 19, 1904; “Met at Hill Home,” Petaluma Courier, March 17, 1905; Hill Opera House ad, Petaluma Courier, September 5, 1908; Note: beginning in 1908, the Hill only advertises longer moving pictures, many of them educational documentaries.
[5] “Tonight the Mystic Theater Will Be Formally Thrown Open,” Petaluma Argus, January 25, 1912; “Dr. John A. McNear Has Leased the Hill Opera House,” Petaluma Argus, April 4, 1912; “Compliment for Local Lady,” Petaluma Argus, December 4, 1914; “The Vaudeville at the Hill,” Petaluma Argus, August 4, 1915; Rosenbloom, p. 57.
[6] Rosenbloom, p. 55; Parker, p. 82.
[7] “Tonight the Mystic Theater Will Be Formally Thrown Open,” Petaluma Argus, January 25, 1912; “T&D Junior Syndicate Buys the Hill Opera House,” Petaluma Argus, July 8, 1924; Kristin Hunt, “The End of American Film Censorship,” The Jstor Daily, February 28, 2018, https://daily.jstor.org/end-american-film-censorship/; Parker, p. 82.
[8] “California Theater Formally Opened Tomorrow,” Petaluma Argus, January 22, 1925; “Left for Martinez to Make Home,” Petaluma Argus, July 6, 1926; “Is Transferred to Santa Rosa,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 1, 1927; Maggie Valentine, The Show Starts on the Sidewalk: An Architectural History of the Movie Theatre, Starring S. Charles Lee. (Yale University Press), 1994; “C.V. Taylor Promoted to Position at San Francisco,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 31, 1929; “Cal Theater Joins in Chain Birthday,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 19, 1960; “So They Tell Me” column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 7, 1967; “Funeral Notice,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 2, 1985; Note: the first manager was C.V. Taylor of San Francisco, with Lee Naify as associate manager. In July 1926, Lee Naify left to manage another of his brother’s theaters in Martinez. He was replaced by his brother Sergius Naify, who took over from Taylor as manager when he left in 1929. Naify remained until his retirement in 1960; Ed Peoples on Doc Naify’s personality: “He spoke quickly with a slight accent, and was all business, a no-nonsense guy. He always seemed to think that someone was out to cause a problem in the theater. A friend of mine, Bob Green, worked there, and said that the Doc would walk through the seats after a showing and gather up the empty popcorn boxes to reuse again.”
[9] “The Talkies on Sunday,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 30, 1929; Kristin Hunt, “The End of American Film Censorship,” The Jstor Daily, February 28, 2018, https://daily.jstor.org/end-american-film-censorship/
[10] “Audience Applauds Robe at First Petaluma Showing,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 9, 1954; “Hundreds See Blaze Damage Theater Here,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 5, 1957; 1958: “Cal Theater to Re-open Next Week,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 10, 1958; “California Theater Sold,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 25, 1968.
[11] “In Defense of New Rating System,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 6, 1969; Hunt.
[12] Hunt; “Letter to the Editor: Theater Owner Questions Letter,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, February 1, 1971.
[13] “Opening Set for New Firms,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, July 15, 1976: Petaluma’s first twin-plex theater was Washington Square Cinemas that opened at 219 South McDowell Boulevard in 1976, later expanding to a five-plex; “Curtain Rises on New Movie Theater,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 15, 1990: Pacific Theaters, a large theater chain, opened Petaluma Cinemas, an eight-plex theater with first-run films at the intersection of Old Redwood Highway and North McDowell Boulevard; “Rejuvenated Theater to Return to Life as Performing Arts Center,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 23, 1979; “New Owner Plans to Remodel Phoenix Theater,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 7, 1981.
[14] Interview with Tom Gaffey by John Sheehy, November 28, 2024; Email from Aaron Sizemore, former Phoenix projectionist; “Phoenix Theater Goes Discount,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 31, 1983; “Houdini a No-Show at Séance,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 1, 1984 (first newspaper mention of Gaffey as manager); “Bill Soberanes” column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 30, 1984; “Clover Cinema to Open Friday,” Cloverdale Reveille, July 1, 1981; Gaffey’s start date is erroneously reported in some later newspaper accounts as being 1983.
[15] “Lights Out for Phoenix Screen?” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 16, 1986; “Video Dance Hall for Teenagers,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 6, 1987; “City Seeks Restraining Order on Phoenix Theater Dances,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 4, 1987; “Video Dances Can Continue—For Now,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 4, 1987; “Phoenix Owner Claims City Wants to Close Him,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 12, 1987; “Phoenix Theater to Close,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 6, 1987; Parker, p. 89.
[16] “Phoenix Controversy Ends,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 31, 1988; “Teen Hangout Phoenix Theater Up for Sale,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, April 30, 1995; “Phoenix Holds On—Thanks to Benefit,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, July 12, 1995; Interview with Tom Gaffey by John Sheehy, November 28, 2024.
[17] Interview with Tom Gaffey by John Sheehy, November 28, 2024; “Bill Soberanes” column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 29, 1988; “Old Theaters Trying to Survive,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 26, 1991.
[18] Interview with Tom Gaffey by John Sheehy, November 28, 2024; “Older Theaters Gird for Battle,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 15, 1990; “Phoenix to Attract More Teens,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 21, 1993.
[19] “Healthy hangout: A New Teen Clinic at the Phoenix Theater Offers Sale Anonymous Reproductive Health Care,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 27, 2002; “It’s a Birthday Party and You’re Invited,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 3, 2009; Interview with Tom Gaffey by John Sheehy, November 28, 2024.
[20] Interview with Tom Gaffey by John Sheehy, November 28, 2024.
[21] “Phoenix Theater’s ‘Angels’ are Telecom Millionaires,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 15, 1999; “Sales of Phoenix is Final,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 19, 2000; “Non-profit to Assume Phoenix Ownership,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 31, 2001.
[22] “Editorial: Is the Phoenix Theater a Public Nuisance?” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 27, 2010;