Smoking at the movies is a thing of the past.

That’s why it’s still allowed at the Hollywood Cinema.

The 40-year-old movie theater, at 1710 Harrison St., may well be the only traditional cinema in South Florida where patrons can still light up while watching a movie.

“It’s part of our hold on nostalgia and the way things were back in the ’50s when this theater was opened,” said Rose-Anna Taylor, the cinema’s marketing director. “You never got rid of your poodle skirt or your bobby socks from the ’50s. Why get rid of an old-fashioned pleasure at the movies such as smoking?”

But movie theater officials at South Florida’s major movie complexes — including those operated by General Cinema Corp., Wometco, Loew’s and American Multi Cinemas — say their smoking sections have gone the way of the 50-cent bag of popcorn. They have moved their smokers into the lobby or outside.

Martin Green, who works for the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services in Tallahassee, called the Hollywood’s smoking section unusual.

Green’s division, the HRS cancer program, oversees the Florida Clean Indoor Act of 1985, which prohibits smoking in a movie theater unless the management designates a special smoking section.

Diane Satawa, manager of the Cinemas Four in Pompano Beach, said that theater’s smoking ban was a matter of modern courtesy. “It’s uncomfortable if you have smoking inside the theater because you have the air conditioning and that blows the smoke all over the place,” she said. “That bothers people.”

Besides the Hollywood Cinema, the major smoking theaters are pub-style theaters such as the Cinema N’ Drafthouses in Fort Lauderdale, Coconut Creek and Lauderdale Lakes.

Maybe that’s because, with their concession stands stocked with food, beer and wine, the theaters don’t consider themselves true movie houses. In fact, they are licensed as restaurants.

“You can smoke in designated areas of restaurants,” said Garry Smyth, owner of the Coconut Creek drafthouse. Half of his 260-seat theater/restaurant, furnished with tables and chairs instead of fixed seats, is designated a smoking section.

But Smyth does not think other movie houses will follow his example. “Smoking in theaters is a thing of the past,” he said.