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UNITED ARTISTS TO INCREASE ACCESSIBILITY OF STADIUM-STYLE THEATERS

First Such Agreement on Access to Stadium-Style

WASHINGTON, D.C. - United Artists Theatre Circuit Inc. (UATC), one of the nation's largest movie theater chains, will make its stadium-style theaters more accessible to persons with disabilities under an agreement reached today with the Justice Department and Disability Rights Advocates. The proposed settlement is the first voluntary agreement to address accessibility to stadium-style seating in a nationwide movie chain.

Stadium-style seating - with seats placed on a series of risers rather than the traditional sloped floor - has increased in popularity in the last five years. In most of these auditoriums, moviegoers are required to climb steep risers to sit in the enhanced viewing areas. Without access to these areas, people in wheelchairs are often relegated to seats that are very close to the screen, and are forced to crane their necks in an attempt to view the screen.

Under this agreement, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, UATC will take significant steps to ensure that the stadium-style seating experience is made available to people in wheelchairs, pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act. The agreement also requires UATC to complete barrier removal in existing theaters, at a cost of at least $250,000 per year for five years. The agreement applies to all theaters that UATC constructs with stadium-style seating or converts to stadium-style seating in the next five years. Under the agreement, UATC will;

• locate wheelchair seating areas so that their vertical viewing angles are in the same range as the best 50 percent of the seats in the house (for new theaters only);

• locate all wheelchair seating no closer to the screen than the back of the aisle separating traditional seats from stadium seats, and raising those seats or otherwise providing an unobstructed view (for small theaters with 300 seats or less that are converted to stadium seating with some traditional seats);

• locate all wheelchair seats so that their viewing angles are in the same range as the best 60 percent of the seats in the house (for converted theaters that are larger or have all stadium seats);

"Persons with disabilities should not be segregated into the worst seats in the house, but instead should have access to seats of comparable quality to those of other patrons," said Bill Lann Lee, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. "Now the experience offered to people with disabilities will no longer be second-best, and people in wheelchairs will share the comfortable and enhanced view that other movie patrons take for granted."

This agreement must be approved by the court in San Francisco and the U.S. District Court in Delaware, where UATC has filed for reorganization in bankruptcy. The agreement will amend a 1996 court-approved agreement that required barrier removal in then-existing traditional theaters and compliance with ADA standards in new construction of traditional theaters. UATC sought an extension of time from the other parties within which to complete that work. The amended agreement grants an extension of five years for barrier removal but adds specific criteria for new and altered stadium-styled theaters. United Artists has more than 1600 screens and more than 200 theaters in 23 states, making it the sixth largest theater chain in the country.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, newly constructed or altered facilities, including motion picture theaters, must be readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities in accordance with the ADA Standards for Accessible Design. Existing places of public accommodations, such as theaters, must remove physical barriers to access when it is readily achievable to do so. The Department has sued five movie chains in the last three years alleging that the chains' failures to provide access to stadium seating - through ramps, cross aisle access, or entrances at the back of the auditoriums - violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.