Restaurateur and caterer Eddie Dopkin emerged as a potential player in the Senator Theatre sweepstakes as the 70-year-old landmark at 5904 York Road was sold to the Baltimore City government for an underwhelming $810,000 at a foreclosure auction today.

The city, which was seeking more than $1 million after buying the mortgage note from 1st Mariner Bank earlier this year to prevent a bank auction, bought the property after several attempts by auctioneers to get more than $800,000, the highest bid before the city stepped in.

The auction took on a circus-like atmosphere outside the Art Deco theater, where several hundred people, including debt-ridden theater owner Tom Kiefaber, gathered to watch, and in some cases, protest the auction.

The city now is likely to issue a Request For Proposals, or RFP, to find someone who would be willing to lease and operate the Senator as a theater or entertainment venue.

Dopkin, who is well known in north Baltimore for his Alonso’s, Loco Hombre, S’ghetti Eddie’s and Miss Shirley restaurants on Cold Spring Lane in Keswick, as well as his family’s Classic Catering business, registered to bid at the 11 a.m. auction, and presented Alex Cooper Auctioneers with a $50,000 certified check, as required to register to bid.

The bidding started at $750,000. There was at least one another bid for $800,000.

Dopkin would neither confirm nor deny that he made a bid. Auctioneers would not say who besides the city placed a bid, citing confidentiality.

But Dopkin did say that if the city does issue an RFP, “I would seriously look at it.”

Dopkin said that questions about parking and other issues may have limited bidding. 

“I don’t think a sensible person would buy it without knowing all the answers,” he said. “I think it limited all the bids.”

After the $800,000 bid, auctioneers recessed, conferred in private, and then picked up where they left off, announcing that the city was bidding $810,000.

Others attending the auction who were known to be potential bidders or tenants included representatives of Loyola College, Charles Theatre owner James "Buzz" Cusack" and Nick Conitis, a real estate developer, who said he purchased the old State Theatre in Havre De Grace about six months ago. That theater was built in the 1920s, said Conitis, who brought a certified check for $50,000.

The auction prompted cries from Senator supporters that it was rigged, and many people complained that they couldn’t hear. Paul Cooper, who conducted the auction, advised them to move closer.

Kiefaber, the longtime Senator owner, who fell far behind in his mortgage payments, made arrangements to hold the auction inside the theater. He had free beer on hand and had invited a comedian, Larry Lancaster, to say a few words before the auction.

But the auctioneers took the wind out of Kiefaber’s sails by holding the auction on the sidewalk over Kiefaber’s objections.

Kiefaber said he assumed that he legally will not have to leave the theater — where the classic “Rashomon” was showing this week — until the sale of the Senator is ratified by a court, which he said could take up to 120 days. The Senator stopped showing first-run movies this spring, but it still showing classic films.

Kiefaber said he would consider challenging the ratification in court, but did not say on what legal grounds.

He said he was hoping that the auction would be done “properly,” giving the Senator in its current incarnation a fitting ending.

But when a reporter asked him what he would do based on what had happened at the auction, he said, “I don’t mean to be coy, but what did just happen?”

And he said, “This gives me no sense of closure.”

This story has been updated.

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user comments (2)

user tharris says...

This is the best coverage I've seen of the event thus far! It is very interesting to note that Mr. Kiefaber had been requested beforehand by the auctioneer to hold the auction INSIDE (probably expecting a large crowd) the theatre and city officials agreed. He and volunteers worked into the early morning hours making sure the theatre would be ready to receive everyone in a comfortable and SAFE atmosphere. Then the city walks in minutes before the auction is to begin and tells everyone to go outside?! So out into the heat/humidity all these people go, spilling into the street - which IMHO is a safety hazard (and probably prompted the police to be called). And while people where prompted to move to the front if they couldn't hear the auctioneer, new media with their cameras were all up front being asked to move back by the auctioneer's staff. A circus sideshow atmosphere at best... That all could have been avoided if city officials would have stuck to the original plan. And, No one could explain why this change was necessary.

Posted 8:03 AM, 07.23.09

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user tomkiefaber says...

I agree with tharris, this article is the best of the bunch by far. Larry Perl is to be praised for this balanced and informative effort. Dobkin's comments about parking and "other issues" limiting all the bids relates directly to our specific concerns in that regard. Issues that may concern a ratification judge as well. Also the abrupt shift in the auction being held inside, as was specifically requested of us by the city and the auctioneers weeks before the event to provide an optimal setting and prevent the very same negative factors that plagued the auction outside, remains a mystery. No one in authority has provided a valid reason why this was done so abruptly, only that they had the authority to do so. Why however? One attendee wryly observed that a figurative sleight of hand is much easier to perform amidst chaos instead of in front of a rapt, seated audience. For the record, Larry Lancaster was to serve as a gracious MC, and The Senator is showing first-run films, as with the recent "Under Our Skin"

Posted 4:43 AM, 07.24.09

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