Jonathan V. Last, online editor
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THERE ARE MOVIE SNOBS and then there are movie-theater snobs. The movie-theater snob looks for big screens, high-end sound, legroom, and the newest innovation, stadium seating. If you're a movie-theater snob, chances are you worship at the altar of AMC theaters because they are the gold-standard of the cineplex world. So naturally, the Department of Justice is trying to put them out of business.
AMC (American Multi-Cinema Inc.) opened its doors in 1920 (as Durwood Theaters) and has been the industry leader ever since. In fact, nearly every feature we now take for granted in a movie theater was originally an AMC innovation. They pioneered the multiplex concept, opening America's first twin, four-, and six-screen theaters (in 1963, 1966, and 1969, respectively). They patented the armchair cup-holder in 1981. They were the first chain to make a system-wide commitment to brilliant digital sound when they adopted SDDS in 1994. In 1996, they renovated concessions counters so that customers could butter their own popcorn. And in 1995, AMC brought the concept of stadium seating to America and revolutionized the movie-going experience with the first megaplex.
Today AMC runs 3,558 screens across the United States. Their theaters are always the cleanest, brightest, and most customer-friendly--they were the first chain with a frequent-watcher program to reward patrons. AMC is, and has been for 40 years, the best chain theater exhibitor in the country, and they've done it through a continual process of experimentation and innovation.
But the Clinton Justice Department wasn't impressed. In June of 1998, the
Civil Rights Division, under liberal crusader Bill Lann Lee, approached AMC's lawyers with allegations that the stadium seating in certain of the chain's Southern California theaters violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Seven months later, unsatisfied with the company's response, the Justice Department filed suit against AMC in a California district court. That case, eventually inherited--and prosecuted with undiminished vigor--by the Bush Justice Department, was decided last November: Judge Florence-Marie Cooper rendered an across-the-board verdict against AMC in a decision filled with bile (the judge called AMC's defense at turns "intellectually dishonest" and "insulting" and accused them of "deliberate misrepresentation" at multiple junctures). Cooper ordered the company to remedy its ADA violations and pay both compensatory and punitive damages.
American companies get clobbered by the ADA all the time, of course. But the AMC case is particularly instructive--about the character of the Justice Department's permanent legalocracy, and about the special burden that ADA imposes on unusually innovative entrepreneurialism.
FIRST, WE MUST HEARKEN BACK to the dark days of movie-watching when "traditional" theaters were the industry standard. In a traditional theater, the screen was raised up at the front of the auditorium and the floor gradually sloped upward all the way to the back. For the general audience, relatively few seats were ideal. According to a 1994 paper by the National Association of Theater Owners, only the seats in the back third of a theater were optimal; the front two-thirds were noticeably flawed.
Wheelchair seating in the traditional arrangement was also imperfect: Disabled patrons wishing to sit near the middle of the theater had only two choices: the very back row, or a single spot on the aisle, about a third of the way down toward the screen. Bottom line: In traditional theaters, no one--except the few customers lucky and fleet-footed enough to find open, well-placed seats--was truly happy.
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