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State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, D-New York City, speaks at a news conference in March as Rep. Linda Rosenthal, D-New York City, looks on. Hoylman-Sigal supports a bill that would require theaters nationwide to offer more closed captioning for films.

Open captioning could be coming to major theaters across the state.

Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, D-New York City, has introduced legislation (S.8961) that would require theaters that show more than 10 films per week to provide open captioning for films for a certain number of showings. New York City already has such a requirement, and Hoylman-Sigal wants to expand the requirement to the rest of the state.

Open captions contain slightly more detail than closed captions, with nonverbal phrases like “thunder” or “car honking.” Unlike closed captions, which can be turned on and off using a decoder found in most televisions, open captions cannot be removed from the screen.

“Currently, federal regulations require theaters to provide individual display devices that display dialogue in written form as closed captions that are visible only to patrons with the display devices,” Hoylman-Sigal wrote in his bill. “While this provides some cinema access for deaf and hard of hearing Americans, these closed captioning devices can be distracting for users. Of particular concern is that cinemas are not properly maintaining their working equipment and users are reporting frequent battery failures and malfunctions. Because of these difficulties, cinemas are not a fully accessible or comfortable environment for the deaf and hard of hearing.”

Theaters covered by this provision would be required to provide closed captioning for at least half of scheduled showings that occur during peak movie viewing times. Theaters found to be violating the open captioning law could face a civil penalty of between $100 and $500 for each violation.

The National Association for the Deaf has supported the distribution of open captioning in movie theaters across the country. Federal law requires theaters to provide individual display devices that display dialogue as closed captions that are only visible to patrons with those display devices. Hoylman-Sigal said such devices can be distracting for users, while some theaters don't maintain the devices because users say battery failures and other malfunctions are common.

“Because of these difficulties, movie theaters are not a fully accessible or comfortable environment for the deaf and hard of hearing,” Hoylman-Sigal wrote. “To address these concerns, jurisdictions such as Hawaii and New York City are now mandating minimum screenings of subtitled films. Similar legislation is pending in many other states and cities, including Maryland, Virginia, Vermont and Washington DC

Closed captions and open captions provide text at the bottom of the screen that is visible to everyone in the theater. While open captioning primarily benefits the deaf and hard of hearing community, it also benefits many others, including English language learners.”

Hawaii passed its laws in 2015 on the recommendation of Rep. James Tokioka, whose son is deaf. The law was originally in effect for two years before the end date was removed. The state requires theaters that operate more than two locations in the state to provide open captioning for films for at least two showings per week. Cinemas must also provide audio description services to visually impaired moviegoers upon request for any film that includes this feature.

“In the small capacity of the Legislature, we wanted to collectively do everything we could to better support the deaf community across Hawaii,” Maui Rep. Justin Woodson said in 2016, according to the Maui News. “This is one small way we could do that.”

AMC Theaters, the largest cinema chain in the country,

“However, this bill would ensure that the deaf, hard of hearing, and multilingual New York City movie theaters can enjoy,

no matter where they live in the state,” Hoylman-Sigal wrote.