PROVO -- Whose line is it anyway? No one is claiming responsibility for the traffic-stopping marquee at the Academy Theatre.
Since Thursday morning, a small sign in the box office window reading "Coming soon: Hooters," has found its way to the marquee in big, bold letters. A telephone number listed on the sign where one can "apply to be a Hooters girl" belongs to Beardall Construction, a company that has salvage rights to the building before it's demolished this spring."I didn't realize I was auditioning Hooters girls," said company owner Kyle Beardall. Hooters, a nationwide restaurant chain, is known for waitresses clad in skimpy shorts and tight tank tops.
Beardall said a new business will be built in place of the show house but that he couldn't talk about the project. "Apparently, from what I've been told, the marquee is correct," he said.
The theater's longtime owner Dallas Young, a retired attorney, recently sold the 60-year-old movie house to Kenner Associates, a West Valley land development firm that's attempting to buy a string of University Avenue buildings. As reported in the Deseret News Thursday, plans are in the works to raze the old buildings and erect a multistory office plaza and parking terrace.
Bruce Kenner refused Wednesday to comment on the project or whether the possibility of a Hooters is real.
Attorneys at Young's old law firm, Ivie & Young, next to the theater, doubt Provo will see a Hooters anytime soon.
"I think we are all the victims of a practical joke. I think it's probably a practical joke by the construction company," Darren Mecham said. "I never knew a construction worker who didn't like a good way to meet girls."
Beardall said Friday that he doesn't know who put up the signs and that he was on his way to the theater to take them down.
A spokesman for Hooters in Midvale said the chain has no plans to build in Utah Valley.
"We've had a lot of discussions with a lot of people (about the downtown project), but we've never had any discussions with Hooters," Provo Mayor Lewis Billings said.