Places of Public Accommodation - Open Movie Captioning

SB 259 modifies Maryland's requirements for movie captioning in theaters. It reduces the threshold for mandatory open captioning from eight to four or more screens in a motion picture house, requiring such theaters to provide open captioning for at least two weekly screenings per film. Open captioning displays dialogue directly on the screen (unlike closed captioning, which requires a device) and must be available for films produced with it. The law takes effect October 1, 2026, applying to theaters with four or more screens.