State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, D-New York City, speaks at a March news conference as Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, D-New York City, looks on. Hoylman-Sigal is sponsoring legislation that would require theaters to offer more open captioning on movies across the state.

Open captioning could be coming to large movie 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 movies a week to provide open motion picture captioning for a specified number of showings. There is already such a requirement in New York City, and Hoylman-Sigal wants to expand the requirement to the rest of the state.

Open captioning includes slightly more detail than subtitles, with nonverbal phrases such as “thunder” or “car honking.” Unlike closed captioning, which can be turned on and off using a decoder found in most TVs, open captioning cannot be removed from the screen.

Currently, federal regulations require movie theaters to provide individual viewing devices that display dialogue in writing as closed captions, visible only to patrons with the viewing devices,” Hoylman-Sigal wrote in his legislative justification. “While this provides deaf and hard of hearing Americans some access to cinema, these closed-captioning devices can be distracting for users. Of particular concern, movie theaters fail to properly maintain working devices, and users recount frequent battery outages and malfunctions. As a result of these difficulties, movie theaters are not fully accessible or comfortable environments for the deaf and hard of hearing community.”

Theaters that fall under the provision would have to provide at least half of scheduled showings with open captioning occur during peak motion picture attendance hours.Theaters found violating the open closed captioning law could face a civil penalty of between $100 and $500 for each violation.

The National Association for the Deaf has supported the growth of open closed captioning in movie theaters across the country. Federal law requires theaters to provide individual viewing devices that display dialogue as closed captions visible only to patrons with the viewing devices. Hoylman-Sigal said such devices can be distracting for users while some theaters don’t maintain the devices, with users saying there are frequent battery outages and other malfunctions.

“As a result of these difficulties, movie theaters are not fully accessible or comfortable environments for the deaf and hard of hearing community,” Hoylman-Sigal wrote. “To address these concerns, jurisdictions such as Hawaii and New York City now mandate a minimum of open caption motion picture showings. Similar legislation is pending in many other states and cities, including Maryland, Virginia, Vermont, and Washington D.C. In contrast to

closed captions, open captions provide text at the bottom of the screen that is visible to all viewers in the theater. While open captions particularly serve the deaf and hard of hearing community, they benefit many others, including English language learners.”

Hawaii passed its legislation in 2015 after advocacy from state Rep. James Tokioka, whose son is deaf. The law was originally effective for two years before the end date was removed. The state requires theaters operating more than two locations in the state to provide open movie captioning for at least two showings a week. Theaters must also provide visually impaired moviegoers with audio description services upon request for any film that includes this feature.

“In the Legislature’s small capacity, we wanted, together, to do what we could to better support the deaf community throughout Hawaii,” said Maui Rep. Justin Woodson in 2016, according to the Maui News. “This is one small way we could do that.”

AMC Theaters, the largest movie theater chain in the country,

“This bill, however, would ensure deaf, hard-of-hearing, and multilingual New Yorkers can enjoy movie theaters,

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