Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations-Movie Theaters; Movie Captioning and Audio Description

Résumé

The Department of Justice (Department) is issuing this notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in order to propose amendments to its regulation for title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which covers public accommodations and commercial facilities, including movie theaters. The Department is proposing to explicitly require movie theaters to exhibit movies with closed captioning and audio description at all times and for all showings whenever movies are produced, distributed, or otherwise made available with captioning and audio description unless to do so would result in an undue burden or fundamental alteration. The Department is also proposing to require movie theaters to have a certain number of individual closed captioning and audio description devices unless to do so would result in an undue burden or fundamental alteration. The Department is proposing a six- month compliance date for movie theaters' digital movie screens and is seeking public comment on whether it should adopt a four-year compliance date for movie theaters' analog movie screens or should defer rulemaking on analog screens until a later date.