The owner of South Bay Cinemas says he was forced to postpone the theater's long-awaited reopening, which was scheduled for Friday.

The theater has been closed since 2016.

Jay Levinson, who owns the theater, says the Town of Babylon's building and fire departments came to inspect the building around two weeks ago and did not give him approval to reopen. He says he hired a lawyer and that the reopening date is now to be determined.

Levinson provided a statement to News 12, saying "There are certain things that the fire department and building department want us to get done that we feel are unnecessary. They feel it is necessary. We have hired a lawyer from West Babylon, and we hope to sit down and settle this amicably. We went by the plans but now we're told we changed it all around. I'm hopeful we'll be able to settle this with the lawyer's help and finally get the theater open, but the town doesn't seem like they're in any rush."