It's back! DC's Open Captioning bill! The Washington, DC bill for open captions! It was re-introduced March 14, 2022  in the Washington, DC city council.

The new bill is “B24-0709 - Open Movie Captioning Requirement Act of 2022.”  It was re-introduced by Councilmembers Charles Allen, Brianne Nadeau, Janeese Lewis George, Mary Cheh, Christina Henderson, Elissa Silverman, and Robert White.

What does this reborn bill, which can be downloaded from https://lims.dccouncil.us/Legislation/B24-0709  do?

It would require that a movie theater with more than one screen would offer at least 12% of the weekly scheduled showings of each movie with open captions. The exception is that if a movie has less than 7 scheduled screenings in a week, the theater is not required to provide an open captioned screening.

Regarding the minimum of 12%, at least half must be provided during peak attendance hours.  Peak attendance hours are defined as:  (A) A movie that begins after 5:59 p.m. and finishes before 11:01 p.m. on Friday; or (B) A movie that begins after 11:59 a.m. and finishes before 11:01 p.m. on Saturday or Sunday.

For open caption screenings scheduled outside of peak attendance hours, at least half of those must start after 5:59 p.m. and finish before 11:01 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

Theaters that have only one screen will have to provide an open caption screening once per month, or upon receipt of a request through a formal process.

Remember Maryland?

Maryland’s own open captioning bill, HB1238 (https://legiscan.com/MD/bill/HB1238/2022 is still alive! It had a hearing on March 9, and is awaiting a vote.

Help DC AND Maryland

Help both DC and Maryland get their bills passed! Share this update; encourage people to sign the petition who have not already signed it; make YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok videos and social media posts about why you want these bills passed,  using these hashtags:

#dcopencaptioningnow

#mdopencaptioningnow