[Article] Inside I'm fuming: disabled want to boycott the Savoy

Victor

I understand the sentiment of the article, but how do you boycott something you can't go to?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2765-1313174,00.html

The Sunday Times - Ireland
October 17, 2004
Inside I’m fuming: disabled want to boycott the Savoy
Jan Battles

DISABLED groups want a boycott of Dublin’s best-known cinema because wheelchair users can’t get in to see a new film . . . about disability.

Inside I’m Dancing, a buddy movie about two wheelchair users, is being shown in a non-wheelchair-accessible screen of the Savoy on O’Connell Street.

The groups believe the insult is all the more pointed because the film depicts the obstacles faced by disabled people due to lack of wheelchair access.

The movie, directed by Damien O’Donnell, opened on Friday in screen two of the Savoy, which is upstairs. Screen one, the main auditorium on the ground floor, is the only one accessible to wheelchairs. This is showing the cartoon Shark Tale.

“People in wheelchairs, their families and friends should vote with their feet and their wheels and go elsewhere,” said Eugene Callan, the chairman of the Centre for Independent Living, the organisation which inspired the film. “We would like the Savoy to put a little bit of thought into perhaps putting a lift in and improving access at the front door.

“We are encouraging people to go to cinemas which are for everybody, not just those lucky enough to be able walk up stairs,” said Callan, who has been paralysed since 18.

The Savoy was not made wheelchair-friendly during a recent refurbishment.

“It’s very disillusioning for anybody in a wheelchair,” said Olan McGowan of the Irish Wheelchair Association. In Britain, new regulations mean businesses providing services to the public are required to be accessible to the disabled, but the same is not true in Ireland.

Inside I’m Dancing stars Steven Robertson and James McAvoy, who escape from a home for the disabled and experience life in the outside world.

Ster Century in Dublin’s Liffey Valley, the country’s largest cinema complex, is showing the film on two screens, one of them its largest. Nigel Drake, the general manager, said: “We took two prints of the film, so we can take 30-40 wheelchair users at any one time across the two screens.”

Jammer

saw the film last night, its class!! bit of a mess up by the savoy....

wheels of ire

Is there such a list? If there isn't, maybe we could build one together?
I get fed up with dark passages, having to go round the side and having to call ahead and all that. Or looking at websites which lead you back to having to call anyway.
A list would help, but what does anyone else think?

billy the squid

They are asking disabled people to boycott the savoy, i guess that would include blind and deaf people and their families.