By SARAH MILLER

smiller@SOUNDPUBLISHING.com

PORT ORCHARD — The Dragonfly Cinema on Bay Street is up for grabs. And if you have developed the best proposal, the owner, Gryphon Shafer, will hand the business to you.

Shafer sent out this announcement at 1 p.m. on Nov. 24.

“Greetings,

It has been over four-and-a-half years now since we opened Dragonfly Cinema. In that time, we’ve had a great run with a lot of fun along the way. We’ve been able to show some great movies, titles that were destined for Oscars before they were nominated, compelling art and independent titles, and titles that just weren’t available anywhere else in the Pacific Northwest. We’ve been blessed to work with some top-shelf employees and dedicated volunteers, and we’ve been lucky to serve you, patrons who care about a great movie-going experience. And, of course, our popcorn ain’t that bad.

Despite our love of Port Orchard, our family may need to be a bit more mobile than we’ve been over the past few years due to some recent positive personal events. So it’s with immense sadness that we announce our intention to vacate ownership of Dragonfly Cinema. That said, obviously we want to see the theater continue to operate under new ownership if possible.

We’re looking for the next owner, but we’re going to do this in a bit of strange way. Profit was never our objective with the cinema, so we’re not interested in selling the business for top dollar. Instead, our objective was to see the cinema persist. So we’d like to give it up in such a way that enables the new owner the strongest chance of endurance as possible.

Owning and operating a commercially licensed motion-picture cinema is not a simple prospect. While there is no single task that is particularly complicated or difficult to accomplish, there are lots and lots of small tasks that must be accomplished every day and week. That said, the cinema currently has a wonderful staff to handle these operations. What the cinema will need is an owner who can shepherd it through the next few years, make strategic decisions for the business and look for ways to expand the business.

What we’re going to do is that for the month of December, we’ll be accepting proposals from anyone who’d like to take over the business. Think of it as an open-bidding process, only we won’t be evaluating the proposals based on the dollar figure, but instead on our evaluation of who has the best chance of keeping the doors of the theater open. If you are or know of anyone who might be interested in taking over the business, please consider sending us a proposal.

I expect you’ve probably got many questions, so I’ve put together a page on our web site that will be a place for us to post answers to these questions as we receive them.

If after reading this you have any unanswered questions, please send them to me at gryphon@dragonflycinema.com.

We opened Dragonfly Cinema in part because of a love of movies, but also because we wanted to see the old downtown theater continue to serve the community. Every year, during the Chimes and Lights festival, we open our doors and show free movies. This year will be no exception. If you’ve not yet been to Chimes and Lights, I encourage you to visit this year and spread the word about the little cinema.Thank you all for these past four and a half years. We deeply appreciate your patronage and support.”

Shafer said he and his family are moving on for personal reasons.

“Basically my family needs to be more mobile than we’ve been the past few years,” he said. “I’m looking to make sure we hand off the theater to someone who is able to keep it open.”

The Dragonfly Cinema has been a part of Port Orchard since 1914. Originally the Star Liberty Theater, the operation went through several names and owners before officially becoming the Dragonfly in May 2011.

Shafer bought the theater in December of 2010, nearly five years to the day.

“How I got involved in resurrecting the theater is, I happened to drive down Bay Street when I saw it and thought, ‘Golly, I would love to see if I could get that reopen and back to operation strength,’ ” Shafer said.

After five months of renovations and four-and-a-half years of continuous operations, he said the theater is self-sustaining and the staff is great. In this transition, he is hoping to find someone with a similar passion.

“I didn’t want to abruptly close business … and say I’m done. I want to give someone else a chance,” he said.

“I hope that there’s someone randomly out there in universe wanting to do something similar and can carry it on.”

This was the motivation behind the idea of prospective owners submitting a proposal. Shafer said that it is a much more fun way to solicit a wider audience than simply asking someone he knows.

And he is already thrilled by the response. In the first hour of the press release being posted, he has already had one proposal and several clarifying questions emailed to him.

“As more questions come in privately over email, I’ll add responses to our page for clarity,” Shafer said. “We will also host a discussion on our Facebook page, which might be interesting.”

The theater will continue to stay open until Shafer finds someone to take over operations. This includes the Chimes & Lights Festival that the Dragonfly always plays part in.

“We want to continue the tradition and see where the road takes us,” he said.

For more information, visit www.dragonflycinema.com/ownership.html.