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JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUES SECOND NATIONAL MOVIE THEATER CHAIN

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The owners and operators of the nation's fifth largest movie theater chain were sued today by the Justice Department for denying wheelchair users access to stadium-style movie theaters.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Cleveland, alleges that Cinemark USA, Inc., violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by denying movie-goers who use wheelchairs or cannot climb stairs equal access to stadium-style seats. Stadium-style seats are seats that are placed on risers to provide unobstructed views with improved viewing angles. Except in Cinemark's largest auditoriums, patrons can only access stadium-style seats if they can climb stairs, therefore wheelchair users are relegated to inferior or even unusable seating in the very front of the auditorium.

"Movies are one of our country's most popular forms of entertainment," said Bill Lann Lee, Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. "Persons with disabilities should not be segregated into the worst seats in the house. Their seats should be of comparable quality to those available to other patrons."

The Justice Department began a nation-wide investigation of Cinemark's stadium style theaters after receiving complaints from persons with disabilities who were denied access to stadium-style seats in several theaters. The complaint specifically names Cinemark theaters in Macedonia, Boardman, and North Canton, Ohio, but covers all of Cinemark's theaters with stadium-style seating nationwide. The Department negotiated with Cinemark for several months in an attempt to resolve the matter short of litigation. When those negotiations failed, the Department decided to file today's lawsuit.

This is the Justice Department's second suit against a national movie chain over stadium-style seating issues. The Department sued American Multi-Cinema, Inc. and AMC Entertainment in January, 1999, alleging that AMC also denied wheelchair users access to stadium-style movie theaters. That case is in litigation, and no trial date has yet been set.

Stadium-style seating in motion picture theaters has grown in popularity and currently is one of the most common types of movie theater construction. In Cinemark's typical auditorium design, most of the seating is stadium-style. Those seats are located on stepped risers and provide comfortable, unobstructed views of the screen over the heads of persons seated in all rows ahead. Cinemark's wheelchair seating is located in the first few rows of the theater just below the screen. These seats, found in all but a handful of the largest auditoriums in Cinemark's theater megaplexes, which can have as many as 20 auditoriums, typically provide uncomfortable or even unusable sight lines.

The ADA requires places of public accommodation, such as movie theaters, to provide equal access to persons with disabilities and prevents them from providing persons with disabilities a lower quality of goods and services than they provide other members of the general public. In addition to requiring that seating be made available to individuals who use wheelchairs, the ADA's accessibility standards also require that wheelchair seating locations provide lines of sight that are "comparable" to the lines of sight provided to other moviegoers.

Today's lawsuit seeks an order requiring Cinemark to design, construct, and operate its theaters with stadium-style seating so that they comply with all ADA requirements, including the requirement to provide wheelchair seating areas with comparable sightlines. For those facilities that Cinemark has already built or has under construction, the lawsuit seeks an order requiring Cinemark to make whatever modifications are necessary to comply with the ADA.

The lawsuit also seeks an order requiring Cinemark to pay damages for patrons with disabilities who have been denied access to stadium-style seats, and to pay civil penalties.

Recently, a federal court in El Paso, Texas, ruled that Cinemark violated the ADA by forcing patrons who use wheelchairs to sit in the front rows of its stadium-style movie theaters in sloped floor seating. The Department filed a "friend of the court" brief in this case and is also investigating other movie theaters and theater chains that do not offer wheelchair locations that provide comparable lines of sight in stadium-style theaters.

Individuals interested in finding out more about the ADA or today's lawsuit can call the Department's toll-free ADA Information Line at (800) 514-0301 or (800) 514-0383/TDD or access the ADA Home Page at:

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm

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