The Return of the Video Rental
May 30, 2017. Ever since Video Americain shut its Coldspring Lane location in March 2014, diehard film enthusiasts were left hanging. Enter Eric Allen Hatch, director of programming for the Maryland Film Festival, who, along with six others, hope to fill the void. They have created a Kickstarter page to raise money to open a video-rental store in Remington.
Tentatively named Beyond Video, the store will occupy the defunct Reptilian Records building on Howard
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| The Green House of Reptilian Records Howard Street |
Street. Eric and the group, who are calling themselves the Baltimore Video Collective, have raised a little under $4,000 of their $30,000 goal. They have also collected about 5,000 DVDs, and hope to open by the end of June. The group's Kickstarter page states: “We think video stores are worth fighting for. A great video store is so much more than a place of business. The best video stores offer an immersive experience in every era, genre and region of film culture. Like great bookstores and record stores, video stores are centers of entertainment, learning and discovery; a record of our cultural history; and an exciting social space where friendships, ideas and collaborations are born.”
The store would be run as a non-profit, Hatch plans to run the store as a non-profit. All income would be used to acquire more movies, maintain the building and pay workers.
Source: Kaltenbach, Chris . The Baltimore Sun (Online) , Baltimore: Tribune Interactive, LLC. May 30, 2017.
