This summer, for the first time in seven decades, the screens at the Weirs Drive-In will stay dark, as the owner said she doesn’t have the energy to run the business for another season.

“I’m going to be 86 years old, it’s too much for me to run it by myself. My son has usually helped me out in the past, he’s moved to Florida; I just don’t think I’ll be able to run it,” said Pat Baldi.

The property has been listed for sale for years — currently the asking price for the 12.62 acres in the heart of Weirs Beach is $4.9 million — but Baldi and her family had continued to operate the business while they await a buyer.

Business at the drive-in has been fine, Baldi said. “It always paid its own way, but it was pretty marginal. I’m at the point where I want to sell it, it’s probably not going to be a drive-in, but maybe it will, who knows?”

The Weirs Drive-In dates back to the late 1940s, when similar venues were opening across the country. The business opened in 1949, under the ownership of Henry Gaudet. Pat, along with her late husband, Larry Baldi, bought the business in 1974.

The drive-in would frequently sell out during weekend shows, Baldi said, but it was always limited by the short season in northern New England. The movie industry as a whole has suffered since the COVID pandemic, and it’s been difficult for Baldi to find staff.

“It’s just been hard to run a business like that,” she said.

She said she will continue to host special events at the drive-in, such as during Laconia Motorcycle Week, but the days of spending a summer evening watching a feature film from the front seat of a car, or the bed of a pickup truck, are likely over.

“It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed it,” Baldi said about running the drive-in.

Baldi likes movies — she’s partial to comedies — but said she was too busy to watch the shows she was presenting.

“The big thing is, when you’re running a theater, you don’t get to see a lot of them,” Baldi said. “I don't get to see movies in the summer. I have to wait and see them in the fall.”

This isn’t the first time drive-in operations were expected to cease. In 2017, a developer was negotiating purchasing the property for $2.5 million, and developing it into condominiums and commercial spaces. However, that deal fell through over concerns about the potential of significant archaeological remains that might be just below the surface.

The office of the state’s archaeologist considers The Weirs to be an area of significant archaeological interest, owing to thousands of years of use by indigenous Americans as a prime fishing ground.

An archaeological dig conducted by the University of New Hampshire in 1976 found artifacts in the region dating back 10,000 years. Last year, a team from Dartmouth College uncovered arrowheads thought to be 8,000 years old.