MIDTOWN, NY — They went from openly flouting to open captions.
Since opening May 4, LOOK Dine-In Cinema on West 57th Street and 12th Avenue has neglected to hold open caption screenings as required be a city law which went into effect a whole year prior to their debut.
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According to their website, LOOK began offering open captions on Tuesday evening, a day after Patch published a story on their seeming reticence to legally accommodate deaf and hard of hearing movie buffs.
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For one hard-of-hearing Lawrence of Arabia fan, it was Cairo at the end of the desert.
“We are delighted that in response to Patch’s news coverage that they’ve quickly switched over to open caption showings for the deaf and hard of hearing,” said film fan and deaf/hard-of-hearing activist Jerry Bergman.
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“Their action demonstrates that showing open captions is easy, is convenient for cinema operators, and cost them nothing,” Bergman said. “Any cinema should have no excuse for not complying with the New York City Law.”
The 2021 Open Captions Law requires about a quarter of screenings include captions on the big screen and comes with fines of up to $500 per violation.
A LOOK Cinema representative told Patch that studio discussions were underway and equipment issues were also delaying the full deployment of closed-caption devices, but that both caption offerings should be ready to go by the end of July. A worker at the cinema declined to comment.
Despite flouting the law since opening, no fines had been issued as the department responsible for enforcement, Consumer and Worker Protections, takes an “education-first approach” to “build a culture of compliance with the City’s laws,” a spokesperson told Patch.
Bergman said he hopes that theaters nationwide will begin offering open caption screenings on their own and don’t wait for a local ordinance to force them.
“The entire motion picture industry should follow suit,” Bergman said, “and make it possible for the deaf and hard of hearing to enjoy movies.”
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