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Topic: Regal's Unit Loses Appeal on Seating

Ken Layton
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1452
From: Olympia, Wash. USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 07-02-2004 10:36 AM

When we remodeled the Yardbirds 3 theater in Chehalis, Wash. we converted the auditoriums from "tunnelvision" center aisle slope floor to middle loader stadium with slope floor front half and stadium back half. Turned out very well indeed.

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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!

Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000

posted 07-02-2004 10:38 AM

ADA non-compliance was one of the big reasons Caesars Palace decided to tear down their Omnimax theatre. That house had six entrances, two at the bottom, two at the mid-level sides, two at the top. Wheelchair patrons were placed down front--admittedly not the best place to sit in an Omnimax. The cost of retrofitting wheelchair ramps and an elevator to the 1979 construction was simply too much.

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Ken Layton
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1452
From: Olympia, Wash. USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 07-02-2004 11:20 AM

If the big companies really wanted to play hardball about this they could simply close those theaters and leave the communities with no movie theaters at all.

All this retrofitting will require a tremendous hike in snack bar prices.

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 07-02-2004 12:00 PM

Having a few theaters closed in a "hardball" situation will threaten the National economy...I don't think so [uhoh]

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 07-02-2004 12:11 PM

I must state that I do agree with the premise that any business that did build within compliance of existing ADA codes/regulations...etc and then after completion someone decided to sue...it should be thrown out. If one plays by the rules, they shouldn't be penalized. I still say that regardless of ones position of the ADA...telling a group of people "your place is in the worst part of our theatre" in effect, should strike someone as unreasonable.

In our industry...it has been often stated that the image is best viewed at 2-3 screen-heights. The front row rarely if ever meats that critera. There was once a wonderful document that even took into account how the human body worked in terms of sight and head mobility to find the more comfortable places to sit within an auditorium. Since this stadium seating thing has taken place...that document has been squashed.

Now I do take a different point of view on how accommodating one should be. If a law states that say one needs to accommodate 4% of capacity (as I believe it does for listening devices)...then if you have a percentage of seats that are considered more desirable (2-3 screen heights a way...lets say)...then what ever percentage of seats that fall within that desirable area should be reflected by the 4%...not the entire 4%. So if half of your theatre seating is 2-3 screen heights away...then only 2% of the ADA patrons should be required to fall within that half so all are treated equally...presumming the 2% that are outside of the prime seating are also accessable via wheelchair.

But no matter how you cut it...sticking all of the wheelchairs in the front row is wrong.

Steve, if a theatre owner builds their theatres with the front of the theatre at lobby level then they are silly. Even in sloped floor theatres that wasn't the case...the rear of the theatre is at lobby level. If this building model is kept, you then create a better stadium theatre as described in a previous post.

Steve

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 07-02-2004 12:12 PM

This ruling sounds like a crock of [bs]

to me. Now I gotta admit, the only stadium seating I've seen is at the local Cinemark, and I love it (I know I'm probably in the minority here on that). Their theaters are very wheelchair-accessible, and the designated handicapped areas, though somewhat closer to the screen than some people might like, are far from being crappy. I'd say they're almost the prime seats in the house. "But I don't like to sit that close! I want to be 3 rows higher!" [sleep]

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 07-02-2004 12:51 PM

"Back in the good ole days"

We did help handicap people into their seats. Heck, I used to go out to the cars and help them into the theatre, we would lift them into their chairs, and everyone was happy.

Boy the world has changed......

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Thomas Dieter
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 234
From: Yakima, WA
Registered: Jun 2004

posted 07-02-2004 01:16 PM

Personally, I think that the Stadium Seating looks tacky and needs to be left where it came from, and that is STADIUMS. This really burns me that all the theatres must be built with stadium seating just because people prefer it. I honestly think that the slope style is better due to a couple of reasons:

1. If you trip or fall, your not going to injure your self on railings, steps, or little nooks and cranies that are in stadium seating.
2. For handicap capibility, you can put a hand cap chair(you know the ones that the armrest lifts up on) on the edge of every single row including missing seats approximatly half way down with the traditional slope. You can't do that with Stadium Seating.
3. If you got some puck teenagers in your theatre, with stadium seating, most of the back rows are right under the port hole, and they can place there hand right in front of the projector, and mark the port hole with their greasy hand that they had popcorn in. I don't know about your theatres, but ours are unable to be opened from the booth, you have to go around to the auditorium and clean them from that side, and then they look streaky.

All together, Stadium seating is one of the worst things that has happened to the theatre industry, and personaly, i don't think that it should be even allowed in the theatre.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 07-02-2004 01:20 PM

quote: Thomas Dieter
This really burns me that all the theatres must be built with stadium seating just because people prefer it.

Life would be so much easier if it weren't for those pesky customers and their silly seating preferences!

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 07-02-2004 05:36 PM

Steve, I didn't say that the front of the auditoria were at lobby level, but at ground level and the entry was level to the point where it either sloped down going forward or stadium tiered going up and back. That this entry (& lobby) level is different than the front of house level is pretty much inferred by the point about the sloping floor between.

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Nate Lehrke
Master Film Handler

Posts: 396
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Oct 2002

posted 07-02-2004 08:33 PM

The Minneapolis Crown theatre has very nice handicap seating. They have private balcony’s that sit two or three wheelchairs and companion seats. They only problem with that stet up is, you have to take the elevator up to the booth and travel through the booth to get to the balcony. Would be a hassle.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-03-2004 11:57 AM

quote: Ray Kaufman

Even with sloped floors, merely removing the aisle seat to allow wheelchair access, poses a whole different problem when it come to building safety and fire regs...

I guess I forgot to mention that the house(s) we did this in have exit doors on both sides of the aisles. One has to walk no more than a few rows up or down to get to an exit door.

Also, the "indented" rows are placed so that one row is never completely blocked from both ends. The first H.P. row is front-right. The next is on the left, about 1/2 way back. The next is 3/4 on the right, etc., etc.

Both halls that have this pattern are "continental" layout. There is no center aisle. Then there is a cross aisle about 3/4 of the way back.

This scheme works pretty well for us. Since we are a college we tend to get a fair number of handicapped patrons. We get few complaints about access.

The people who DO complain, I firmly believe, are the type of people would complain regardless of whether they were wheelchair people or not.

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Dave Williams
Wet nipple scene

Posts: 1836
From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 07-04-2004 10:42 AM

quote: Pravin Ratnam
The disabilities act is getting out of hand. What is wrong with the seats in the back rows -whether stadium or non stadium? I have sat in those seats a few times which were designated for handicapped(of course, I would get up if I saw a handicapped person). Those are not bad seats.
Do they have to have access to the best seats in the house? I think reasonable should be the key word here and the back row is reasonable even in the floor level of stadium seatings halls. Obviously there are a few where there is hardly a couple of rows at the floor level and those may need to be modified unless there is elevator access to the top tier of the stadium. I think as a handicapped you should be more concerned with several multiplexes having bad sound and underlit projection. A well projected movie viewed from the back row is preferable to a bad projected movie from the best seat in the house.

Let me tell you what is wrong with the back row! IT SUCKS! I pay to see a movie and I am stuck in the back row? I leave if all I have is the back row. I paid to see a movie, not hear a movie and view a screen from a hundred feet away that now is smaller than my tv in relation to my distance from it. Why bother? It is insulting to people in wheelchairs to say to them "hey, the back row is good enough for you buddy!"

quote: Pravin Ratnam
Wouldn't it be just cheaper to have two or three staffmembers lift the handicapped guy and place him whereever he wants?

On a semi serious note:
But oh, that would ruin his dignity and be patronizing to him. He needs to wheel that chair himself. As if that is any different from the theater having to design an auditorium for his needs. As long as the theater can get the guy to the place he wants, the guy shouldn't complain.

I will give you a small pass here that maybe you don't truly understand the wheelchair issue. Perhaps a perspective of someone who has to use one quite often will enlighten you a bit.

I like to move my wheelchair all by myself. It is something I take pride in, considering that my legs don't like to do everything I tell them to do anymore. So when I am forced, (read forced) to use my wheelchair, I would and do find it rather insulting when people try and push me from behind as if my arms no longer work.

I also would find it not only extremely insulting and very embarrassing if you or your staff tried to lift me to my seat from my chair, I would find it rather painful as well. You see you do not know why I am in the chair. I suffer from a degenerative nerve condition that is very painful. The levels of pain are quite often on par with torture, and would crumble most people to the ground screaming like little girls, if you had to suffer one second of what I suffer. However, time allows me to learn to deal with it.

If you were to try and move me from my chair, you could also cause irreversable damage to bones and tissues, resulting in a lawsuit that would put you out of business and force you to have your wages garnisheed until 30 years after your death. I have to be so very careful as not to cause damage to any part of me, because I cannot heal from serious damage, and would face amputation of limbs in the event of a simple fracture.

If a theater is not handicapped friendly, I say they be allowed to say so and post a sign alluding to that. I will never go there, nor will I sue because I can't get in there. The ADA is a good thing, forcing new construction to allow people like myself who DID NOT ASK to become like this, access to thier buildings.

I like the theaters I go too. The seating is excellent, right in the middle. Most people don't try and knock me down. And on the wonderful occasion I can go without the chair, there are plenty of places for me to lean up against or fall down on.

While I am sure your rants were meant to be taken with a grain of salt, remember that people in wheelchairs probably didn't want to be thier, and don't really enjoy it either. I know I didn't ask to have my life shortened and my abilities severly hindered, and to live in pain as if Saddam Hussien was my best friend (with friends like these you don't need enemies). Imagine the feeling of a butcher knife slicing through the back of your right leg and a meat grinder on your left one, on a constant basis, and then ask me again If I want to sit in the back row.

I don't ask for anything of anyone, just a little compassion when joking about those that didn't ask for what they got.

Ciao

Dave

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 07-04-2004 12:53 PM

Dave,

Answer me this. If this is a stadium seating theatre that is a "rear loader." That is...all enter from the rear and the theatre was built by digging into the ground.

As such, the theatre can only have reasonable access to the rear of the theatre for those in wheelchairs or can not negotiate steps.

If the last row of the theatre is within the 2-3 screen hight criteria (i.e. it doesn't look small and you have a unobstructed view with full surround-sound)...is that not okay with you?

While front row seems to always be a bad position...I don't find that last row is...in fact, it can be the most desired position from a shear comfort point of view.

Steve

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Pravin Ratnam
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 844
From: Atlanta, GA,USA
Registered: Sep 2002

posted 07-04-2004 03:34 PM

quote: Dave Williams
Let me tell you what is wrong with the back row! IT SUCKS! I pay to see a movie and I am stuck in the back row? I

You overstate things. No one said that the back rows are the best seats, but they are not the worst seats either. Many non handicapped people sit in the back rows by choice. I personally prefer two thirds of the way back , but i would not be bent out of shape if I had to sit in the back row. Beats sitting too close to the screen unless you are 5 years old. If a theater is one of those long narrow shoebox like theaters, then you have a point.
But I would not make a blanket statement on backrows. Like I said before, there are so many things unregulated ina theater that ruin ANYONE's viewing experience like dim projector bulbs, non functioning speakers, wrong aspect ratio screens. You could use a small portion of that money that would be used in some cases to give you a better seat to improve those facets and everyone will benefit. If we can get everything else near perfect, then bitch about the back rows.

I think public policy should be based on reasonable accomodation,not making sure handicapped people have to get exactly the same amount of prime access as non handicapped people regardless of the cost. If there are designs, that Regal has shunned which would have been cost effective, then yeah, let them get prosecuted.

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