A local disability advocate is calling for a boycott of Event Cinemas Tauranga by people with disabilities until it can provide adequate seating for wheelchair patrons and their companions.

Tauranga couple Merle and Dion Seeling approached The Weekend Sun this week after years of frustrating attempts to sit together when going to the movies.

Unlike other cinemas in the city, Event Cinemas Tauranga in Elizabeth St (formerly Bay City Cinemas) does not have rows of seating with seats removed so wheelchair patrons can sit next to their companions.

Wheelchair patrons must sit in a space behind their seated companions – a space that also contains rubbish bins.

Event Cinemas general manager of operations in New Zealand Carmen Switzer reacted swiftly, saying the cinema would be removing and modifying some of its existing seats so they can be placed alongside the wheelchair space provided when it is in use. Rubbish bins will also be permanently relocated to an alternative area.

'We will have this in place as soon as the cinema seats can be modified,” she says.

Merle used to take her own camping chair along to the cinema so she could sit next to her husband Dion, who uses a wheelchair.

'I did that about three times and then I thought ‘no, they can provide me with a chair'. They brought me an old wooden chair that creaked the whole way through the movie. Why should I have to sit on something like that when I've paid the same price as everybody else?”

On some occasions Merle will be given a comfortable office chair to sit in, but that is not always the case.

'We feel segregated, and when you're in a wheelchair you don't want to draw extra attention to yourself. When we go to the movies I'll push Dion into the space, remove the rubbish bin to the other side of the room and then stand and wait for a staff member to bring me a chair. It's unnecessary and we've got to the point we don't want to go any more.”

Disabled Person's Assembly spokesman and chair of Tauranga's Disability Advisory Group, Paul Curry, is proposing a boycott of Event Cinemas Tauranga until such time as the company honours its commitments to people with disabilities.

He says he has spoken with the general manager at the cinema several times about the issue, including after it was taken over by Event Cinemas in 2014.

'I am absolutely gobsmacked that this is still going on. We held meetings with the cinema owners and even gave them copies of the building code and what should have happened back at the design stage in 2004. They agreed they were going to approach the new owners in Australia and look to make the modifications – having seats removed – so people could sit with each other.

'This is very disingenuous of them because they said they were going to do their best to make the cinema accessible.”

Paul says 28 per cent of the Tauranga population have a disability of some sort – the highest percentage of all New Zealand cities.

'It's not appropriate. In 2017 we should not be going to the cinema and be made to feel that we have to ask for special privileges. We should be included.

'We want Tauranga to be the most inclusive and accessible city in New Zealand and this goes against that so I will be taking it up with the disability advisory group committee at council and we'll be back to see that cinema.”

Paul believes the Elizabeth St cinemas are in breach of the New Zealand Building Code, in particular NZS4121, which says that spaces reserved for wheelchair users shall be 'adjacent to and included in normal seating provisions.” It includes a diagram showing examples of seating arrangements where seats have been removed from rows to allow for wheelchair spaces.

Patrick Schofield, manager of building services at Tauranga City Council, says it is important that commercial buildings are accessible, and that business owners know that accessibility is about more than getting in and out – it is about being able to carry out normal activities in the building.