Denied service
I’m reminded frequently that we live a short distance from disaster. Autism doesn’t wait for a good time to get big and ugly and messy. It overwhelms at the most inconvenient moments. Anyone with a basic understanding of how autism works — and of many other disabilities that affect children — plans carefully when they take kids out of their comfort zone. It sounds like that’s what Joe Mavor, the director at the Mayo Beach Adaptive Camp tried to do on July 24 when the camp planned a movie outing at Regal Cinemas Waugh Chapel. He arrived early enough to buy the tickets he needed and made clear who the tickets were for. And yet when the group arrived, they were turned away, eventually characterized as a ‘liability.’ Free movie tickets have been offered, but no apology.
A failure of math, or of compassion?
Regal Cinemas operates 12 screens every day, so I suspect they’ve mostly mastered counting. Failing to seat 140 people who purchased tickets is a significant customer service failure and warrants an apology. If a birthday party group of typically developing children had been denied entry, I suspect the apologies would have been immediate and profuse. In this case, the management and staff at Regal Cinemas shifted the burden of their failure onto the group from Mayo Beach.
Imagine what the rest of that day was like for the camp staff and the kids themselves. How many of them do you suppose reacted well to taking a bus to a promised field trip, only to be turned away at the last minute?
Here’s one clue: The camp director offered to pay full price for a different showing. The Mayo Beach Adaptive Camp is a county Recreation and Parks program, not a pricey private camp, and Joe Mavor was nonetheless willing to pay 12 times the budgeted amount to salvage the field trip. He knew. And it still wasn’t enough to get the kids into a movie. Maybe no one at Regal that day fully understood the impact of turning a camp full of disabled kids away. An apology would at least indicate that someone has bothered to try to walk in the shoes of the campers and staff whose presence was labeled a liability. But it's so much easier to turn away, and not consider what it's like to pick up the pieces.
Why freebies won’t cut it
I can fill in those gaps in imagination fairly easily. Leah’s emotions can outpace her ability to express them, and when that happens, behavior stands in for words. I have blocked her from hurting herself, chased her down the street, helped her cope with her regret after she destroys something important to her in a wave of frustration. Most recently, I have dried the tears of her sisters, when unplanned bus problems led Leah to star in a dramatic, very public meltdown at our community pool during their first week of work there. Navigating Leah through an emotional crisis is physically and emotionally exhausting. When that crisis is triggered by someone else's actions, it takes double the effort for me to regulate my own emotions so that I can help Leah work through hers.
I absolutely understand why Rick Anthony, director of Anne Arundel County Recreation and Parks, isn’t satisfied with the offer of free tickets. If Regal Cinemas isn’t able to acknowledge the significant wrong they did this group of people, I certainly wouldn’t feel safe planning more trips there. Many of my friends in the disability community decided they don’t feel comfortable spending money there either; a boycott is gaining momentum. You can tell a lot about an individual, or a company, by watching how they treat vulnerable people. Regal Cinemas failed. It’s time for them to own up, and probably to clean house. I hope some of my friends with neurotypical children will consider voting with their feet as well.