Celebration Cinema owner Loeks Theaters is being sued for not providing captioning for the hearing disabled at its location in Benton Harbor. The suit announced this week was filed on behalf of St. Joseph resident Graham Forsey, who is deaf, and the National Association of the Deaf. Their attorneys say the Americans with Disabilities Act requires movie theaters to ensure deaf individuals have full and equal access. Forsey says he loves the movies but can’t go in Benton Harbor because, there, he can’t understand them. Celebration Cinema tells WSJM News national standards for accommodating the deaf are expected to be rolled out in the next year, and it’s waiting for that to happen before it installs new technology. The suit’s plaintiffs say the technology to display captioning in theaters is “broadly available.”
