Police: Partial ceiling collapse prompts evacuation of Cranford movie theater

Chief Matthew Nazzaro said that a theater employee discovered that a portion of the drop ceiling fell in one of the theater’s six auditoriums.

Matt Trapani

May 1, 2025, 1:29 AM

Updated 6 hr ago

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The partial collapse at a Union County movie theater forced an evacuation on Wednesday evening.
The Cranford police chief told News 12 that the incident happened just before 7:30 p.m. at the Cranford Theater located on North Avenue West.
Chief Matthew Nazzaro said that a theater employee discovered that a portion of the drop ceiling fell in one of the theater’s six auditoriums.
The theater was open and operational at the time, so all of the occupants were evacuated as a precaution. No injuries were reported.
“It was a suspended ceiling inside the building in one of the theaters. That was actually the collapse, not the roof or the structure itself,” Nazzaro said.
Officials say that the building is uninhabitable at this time. The cause of the collapse was not immediately known.