Central Mass. by the Numbers

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Cinema World's seven screens will go black March 31, leaving the city without a movie theater for the first time in nearly three decades. “We can’t thank you enough for making Cinema World as your go-to movie theater over the years!” the theater stated on its Facebook page. In 1996, Cinema World opened for business. The facelift of a former Child World store in the John Fitch Plaza cost an estimated $1 million. Before Cinema World, Fitchburg had been without a movie house since the Fitchburg Theater on Main Street closed in the early 1980s.

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Eight nurses are filing a wrongful termination lawsuit against St. Vincent Hospital and its parent for-profit company, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., according to the Massachusetts Nurses Association. In the lawsuit, filed in Worcester Superior Court, the eight registered nurses claim they were fired after lodging complaints about what they say is inadequate staffing harming patient care. The suit was brought under the state’s Healthcare Whistleblower Law. It protects caregivers from retaliation after disclosing information about possible violations of regulations and established standards that pose a risk to public health. St. Vincent Hospital declined to comment on the lawsuit.

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The saying "teamwork makes the dream work" is something of a cliché, but local businesswomen Kiara Castillo and Katherine Aguilar are here to prove that when something is a cliché, it's often for a good reason. Castillo's store, Made a Manos at 65 Hamilton St., closed in December 2021 but held a grand reopening March 30 as a joint venture with Aguilar's business, K-Sense Co. The two Worcester residents share a passion for handmade, sustainable products. They met through the city entrepreneur scene back in 2021, before meeting again when Aguilar's stepuncle married Castillo's mother.

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Alex Guardiola, an official with the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce and a School Committee member, will be the next head of the Better Business Bureau of Central New England. Nancy B. Cahalen, president and CEO of the BBB for 15 years, is retiring. She is leaving the post in the middle of April. Guardiola is the vice president of government affairs and public policy for the chamber. In January he joined the Worcester School Committee as a district member, running unopposed in November. The regional BBB covers Central and Western Massachusetts, and northeastern Connecticut.

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Court documents reveal that adult entertainment club Hurricane Betty's agreed last year to settle a class-action lawsuit with former dancers for $280,000. Hurricane Betty's, at 350 Southbridge St., settled the class-action lawsuit in September 2023 in U.S. District Court. The conditions of the settlement and any payments to former employees were not publicly available at the time. In 2020, former employee Leah Saad filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the owners of the club had violated the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act as well as state minimum wage and tips laws. Saad's suit claimed that the club failed to pay dancers hired as hourly employees the state tipped minimum wage.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Central Mass. by the Numbers