Theaters Agree to Help Blind, Deaf

[j_shady]

ALBANY, N.Y. - Did you catch the new movie that everyone's talking about at school and at work?

If you're visually or hearing impaired, there's a good chance you couldn't. But that's slowly changing.

Nationwide, more than 150 movie theaters have added special systems to help the deaf, hard of hearing, blind or visually impaired, according to the nonprofit National Center for Accessible Media.

Most of those theaters are in major cities that made the move voluntarily, but states are now putting pressure on theater chains to spread the technology much farther or risk discrimination lawsuits.

In New Jersey, four movie theater chains agreed under pressure last year to install deaf-captioning technology in theaters statewide. The attorney general filed a discrimination complaint against a fifth chain that didn't go along.

A similar deal being announced in New York on Monday involves eight national theater chains. The chains agreed to implement technology to help the visually and hearing impaired enjoy movies in 140 theaters across the New York state