Renovation of Cinema 3 Casino de Gardanne: a look back at 14 years of confusion and disappointments

Three rooms, an association that owns the business, a town hall that owns the walls and provides subsidies, an annual art house festival, and multiple festive or image education projects: the Cinema 3 Casino is a welcome cultural breath of fresh air in Gardanne. Until in 2012, everything stopped. A defective beam has raised fears of the roof collapsing in the 260-seat main hall. She closes.

Roger Meï’s communist and plural left team seems in no hurry to tackle the issue. A stone’s throw from the 2014 municipal elections, she had little taste for the impatient outings of the director and certain members of the board of directors at the time, involved in politics. Officially, she says she is concerned about public finances at half mast and the “pooling“, but the renovation of the room is costed at half a million euros.

A smoky project from “Claec”

So she fantasizes about a Claec project, “cbetween leisure, arts and culture” which must bring together in the same place the plastic arts and music schools (in premises which have passed standards), a cinema hall, and then a piano bar… An agreement is quickly signed with the local public company…