Exhibs Should Train
Employees To Assist
Assisting The Disabled
In Times of Emergency
by Steven John Fellman
NATO Washington Counsel
In the very rare occasion
where a theatre may need to be evacuated because of an
emergency, motion picture theatre
evacuation plans should consider the special needs of patrons
with disabilities.
Though there is no specific
provision in the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)
that addresses evacuation plans
in public facilities such as theatres, it stands to reason
that all public facilities should consider the needs
of their disabled patrons when developing such plans.
In a recent court decision
in Maryland’s Montgomery
County, Katie Savage and the Washington Lawyers Committee
for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs sued the Marshalls
Department Store chain, alleging that Marshalls violated
the ADA by
not having an emergency evacuation plan that protected
disabled patrons.
According to the complaint,
Savage was shopping in the basement level of a Marshalls
department store
in Silver
Spring, Md. An evacuation alarm sounded and the store
elevators were shut down. Savage was trapped in the
basement level
of the store for about one hour without any accessible
means of egress.
As part of a settlement
agreement resolving the litigation, Marshalls agreed
to ensure that each of its 697 stores
had accessible emergency exits and agreed to train
its staff to assist disabled patrons in an emergency
situation.
Marshalls also agreed to pay Savage an undisclosed
amount of money.
Exhibitors should take
note of the Savage decision.
Modern building codes
require that new motion picture theatres have at least
one, and in most cases
two, accessible means
of egress from wheelchair seating locations.
An accessible means of egress must be designed to
permit a mobility
impaired person, such as a person in a wheelchair,
to move from
his/her seating location in the theatre to
an area that is either outside the confines of the theatre
or to an
area outside the auditorium which constitutes
an
area of refuge specially constructed to permit
the disabled
person
to safely wait in this area while help is on
its way.
In a typical motion picture
auditorium with under 300 seats, the wheelchair locations
are usually
all placed
in a single
row on a cross aisle. There will be two accessible
means of egress from that row. The first
accessible means of
egress is back through the vomitory through
which the wheelchair patron entered the theatre.
The
second accessible
means
of egress will be by exiting down a ramp
from the wheelchair row to an accessible exit at
the front
of the theatre.
The accessible exit may lead out of the theatre
or may open to an area of refuge that meets
the requirements
of the applicable building codes. The area
of refuge will
be designed to protect the disabled patron
and also provide
a means of communication to enable the patron
to advise theatre employees and rescue workers
of
his or her
location.
A motion picture theatre
emergency evacuation plan should specifically consider
the needs
of disabled
employees.
The theatre staff should be trained to
know which exits are accessible for disabled persons.
In
the event of
an emergency, theatre employees should
take
affirmative steps
to assist disabled persons wherever possible.
In some emergency situations, elevator
service within the theatre may not be operational.
Your evacuation
plan should
consider how such an event would affect
patrons
with disabilities. If the elevators are
not operating, do persons in wheelchairs
have another accessible route? Assuming
that
there is such a route, how will they know
how to get
there?
Will
the
staff be available to assist them?
These are the types of
issues that are important to address in your evacuation
plan.
Again, although the ADA
does not specifically address evacuation plans, it makes
good
sense for motion
picture theatre operators
to be proactive and design their evacuation
plans with particular attention for
patrons with special
needs.
A copy of the recent
settlement in the case of Savage and the Disability
Rights
Council
of Greater
Washington
v.
Marshalls, is available
by contacting NATO at (202) 962-0054. 
