Who's wrong here? Handicapped seating conundrum...

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, my mother and I and a bunch of family went out to a movie sneak preview last night (Year One–it sucked). My mom is handicapped and needs a seat with a lifting arm to accomodate her. When we arrived the theatre was pretty full, but we all found seats with the exception of her. They only had three of the kind of seats she needed. Two of them were occupied by obviously handicapped people, in the third was a young, healthy guy. I approached him and asked him if he’d move out of the handicapped seat so that my mother could sit, but he refused. He was with someone in a wheelchair that was parked in the gap between his seat and the next one down. Now, there were other seats in that row, he could have moved down a few and still been relatively close, but he wouldn’t have been right beside his friend.

My mom, who wasn’t willing to cause a scene, simply went home. I felt awful, especially since she’s the one who’d coordinated getting the tickets for everyone. Am I wrong to think this guy should have moved? He was in a handicapped seat. Plenty of other couples and groups had to split their seating after the theatre filled up. Or, is it a first come first served seating situation, regardless of handicapped status? Should the guy have been left alone to sit with his friend? (which, considering my mom bailed rather than make a fuss, is what happened) Am I completely out of line that I spent the entire movie wanting to rip this guy’s head off? I can’t help but think someone with a handicapped friend should have been a little more understanding. The rudeness, it irked.

2

I’ve always been under the impression that handicapped seating is for the handicapped, not for the friends and family of the handicapped. Your mom deserved the seat.

3

You are wrong here. Although I am sympathetic to your plight, and would tend to agree that the non-handicapped person sitting in the handicapped seat should have let your mom have the seat in question.

But to spend the entire movie wanting to rip the guy’s head off? Over-reaction. Especially since as I read it, you came “this close” to not being able to find a suitable seat for your mom because ALL the seats she could use were occupied by handicapped individuals. And given the guy sitting in the seat wished to sit next to his handicapped friend, how do you know that was purely for fun and friendship and not because of the potential to need to quickly reach the friend to aid with some health-related issue?

I’m sorry that your mom did lots of work for very little reward, but I can’t see how making a fuss would have improved ANYONE’S evening.

4

If the friend was in a wheelchair, was there not somewhere else that chair could have been placed? It isn’t like the seat your mother needed could have been moved, but it does sound like maybe the other guy and friend might have moved to another place. I understand that he might have needed to be close the the friend in the wheelchair, but I have to wonder if there was a way to accomodate everybody in this. I’m leaning toward his behavior being rude, especially since he should probably understand how it is for people who need special accomodation.

Given that, once he made his decision, there wasn’t much you could do. I hope it didn’t completely ruin the evening for you, although it sounds like the movie did that by itself.

5

This is an all around tricky situation. If the friend needed assistance getting to or from the bathroom or needed someone to be near just in case, then it really is not fair to flip on the guy for wanting to stay next to his friend to help out.

My brother uses a wheelchair in situations where he cannot maneuver well on crutches. In most theaters he can maneuver fine on his own but we have been in situations where the theater barely adheres to ADA standards and it is difficult for someone who is not a daily wheelchair user to navigate the aisles. In those situations, I take him out and bring him back in. Personally, I would not be entirely comfortable crawling over people to assist him and leaving. Additionally, how exactly would he signal me in a dark theater during a movie with people in between without disturbing anyone. I would have gotten up and moved anyway but thats because I don’t really like conflict with strangers. Still, you’re making a lot of assumptions about why he wanted to stay where he was.

On a related side note, handicapped seating in movie theaters generally sucks. Its usually in the front and the ratio of chairs to wheelchair gaps suggests that handicapped people have only 1 or 2 friends/family. I have only been to one theater that brought us in towards the middle and had a very nice fully convertable row with cupholder armrests that could be lowered around a wheelchair.

6

I think the guy should have moved. If I’d been in your position, I would have stepped outside of the theatre, then consulted with the manager and explained that it appeared there were no additional handicapped seats available. Most likely, I would have requested tickets for a later show, and then shown up early enough to snag the handicapped seats.

FTR, I don’t personally use handicapped ANYTHING, regardless of the situation or who I’m with. I wouldn’t sit in the handicapped seat (even with a handicapped friend or relative) any more than I’d use the handicapped parking space or bathroom.

7

Yeah you should have let the manager handle it. They do it all the time. Even though they already had your mom’s money they would have found a way to accommodate her for sure.

No need to get so upset about it, tho. You were in the wrong for not taking it to the manager.

As for the “can’t the wheelchair person be seated somewhere else?” the answer is most likely no. There are spots for wheelchairs that keep the wheelchair-bound patrons from having to be in the aisles. They absolutely cannot be anywhere else.

8

I’ll second that. Would it be out of line to ask why the OP stayed for the movie rather than sticking with Mom?

9

I agree that it’s a tricky situation, but I think the guy was in the clear - he wanted to sit with his friend.

I still feel bad for your mom.

10

I wholeheartedly agree with this! That’s part of the manager’s job. They will find a way to accommodate you and if it really isn’t possible they will give you vouchers for free showings.

I wouldn’t slag the able-bodied guy who was accompanying a disabled person. You don’t have enough information. I used to sit near to a disabled guy in one of my university courses and he had an able bodied assistant in the seat beside him and next to me. The assistant had to accompany him everywhere, only to move the guy’s arm every few minutes (not sure what was going on, but it was almost like the guy would miss a breath, the assistant would move his arm, then the guy’s breathing went back to normal. It happened probably once every five minutes.)

Given that you don’t know if the guy needed to be next to his friend, you can’t be miffed with him.

And I also wouldn’t have let my mom go off by herself. If it was impossible for her to stay, I would have made sure to get us all refund and vouchers and gone home with her.

11

I think the real tragedy here is that a movie as bad as *Year One *was almost completely sold out.

12

I take my Mom to the movies. She’s in a wheelchair. Most of the theatres here have wheelchairs in the very back row with a couple of seats for us regulars interspersed. I’ve never seen seating like you described with a lifting arm; I’ll have to look at the seats I’ve been using in the back and see if they do that.

I’d say it’s entirely possible the guy was just being an ass. It’s equally possible that he had a valid reason that he couldn’t be separated from his friend. No way to tell at this point. If there was another wheelchair space with attached seat and they could have moved there, he was an ass, but it doesn’t sound like there were other seats available.

I know I’d be reluctant to sit separately from Mom, because she wouldn’t really be able to have any popcorn or drink or anything if I did that, which would spoil her movie experience. Not to mention making it very difficult to let me know if she needed to leave, go to the restroom, etc. - which would spoil my experience, because I’d spend the whole movie watching her to make sure she was OK.

I agree that one thing to do would have been to talk to the manager. While y’all might have missed the sneak preview, I’m sure s/he would have come through with a refund, tickets, or something.

Of course, the obvious solution would have been to get there earlier. (And I say this as a chronic tardy, so I’m not trying to be all superior about it.) A sneak preview is always going to be very crowded. If you need special accommodations, you’ve got to include extra time in your schedule to make sure it happens, just like you have to schedule extra time for getting to/into/out of the car, getting ready, etc. It’s just part of the suckiness of being handicapped.

I’ve recently tried to get a bunch of people to a movie (no special needs and a regular showing), so I know how much of a pain it can be just to coordinate all the schedules. Still, if it had been my family, I suspect we would have all gone to a different movie or done something else. (After getting a refund!)

I’m sorry you let this ruin your movie, though. Ya gotta learn to let things go (says the ultimate grudge-holder ;)).

[aside]I was watching a commercial for Year One last night and wondering how bad it was. Guess that question’s been answered, anyway![/aside]

13

The OP and her mom were wrong in not contacting the manager. As Zipper said, he or she is supposed to be able to sort this kind of thing out. Perhaps the OP’s mom really could not be accomodated in this case. That would be unfortunate, but asking the question is a better option than just giving up.

Because he didn’t say so. That’s not enough evidence, however. He might have been more willing to explain himself to a manager than to some random patron.

Belladonna–I think your mom needs to learn to stand up for herself a little bit. Speaking to the manager is not “causing a fuss.” Asking to see if something can be worked out is not “causing a fuss.” She’s disabled, but she doesn’t have to roll over and play dead.

14

Yeah, when I worked at a theater, we bent over backwards to help anyone. Taking care of special needs customers was right up there with keeping the restrooms clean. It’s definitely a “customer is always right” environment - which only makes sense because they really, REALLY want you to come back again. They also want other people to see them being nice to customers so THEY come back again too.

Never be afraid to take your concerns to the manager at a movie theater. They desperately want you to be happy.

15

I’m taking this to mean that your mother went home and everyone else stayed and watched the movie? That raised my eyebrow more than anything else. I wouldn’t have let my mom feel excluded like that - everyone should have left and gone to do something as a group.

16

Well, evidently the movie sucked, so Mom was the lucky one.

17

If the guy said “I’m sorry, I need to stay next to my friend,” even without being more specific about why, it would’ve been one thing. But to just say “no,” and to send the message “I’m temporarily able-bodied in a handicapped seat but I got here first so sucks to be you” would’ve made me go for a manager.

If handicapped people do not advocate for ourselves (and if those with us won’t do it when we can’t) then the temporarily able-bodied will continue to ride roughshod over us.

18

What the heck is the point of handicapped seating if an able bodied person can claim it over a handicapped person?

I agree the manager should have been contacted, but the guy had no right to refuse to move. He’s not handicapped. The seats are not for him.

19

Thanks for all the feedback folks. I’m still thinking the guy should have moved, although needing to be near his friend in a caretaker capacity is a possibility that takes a bit of the sting out of it.
The tickets weren’t paid for–they were freebies that my mom had won and wanted to spread around. So leaving didn’t get you a voucher or raincheck ticket of any kind. As for why we didn’t all leave together–there were 10 or 11 of us there in five different cars and by the time this all came to a head snacks had been bought, seats had been claimed, etc. etc. Not to mention that my mom would have been furious with us for leaving on account of her.

It’s so weird to me though, my mom will raise holy hell about an overlong wait at a reserved restaurant or a messed up order from the bakery or something, but when it comes to stuff like this she’s lil’ miss timid. I think her disabililty embarasses her to some extent so she tries to downplay it.

Today she’s all smiles about it though, since she’s heard from all of us how awful it was she’s calling it a blessing in disguise.

20

This is a good answer, If you want special seating do not get there when the theater is almost full and expect people to move. I could sympathise if the theater was not near full when you got there.