I am not sure "lazy" has anything to do with it.
In my 40 years in this business there has been one truism: The east coast (and in particular the Philaldephia territory) was always much more difficult to deal with than other areas of the country. Many of the old theatre owners in the Philly area used to chalk that up to the fact that it was William Goldman in Philly whose antitrust suit in 1948 forced the divesture of theatres from studio ownership. I am not sure I agreed with that but it has always been more difficult to book on the east coast than the west.