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PHOENIX — A federal judge ruled that theater owners can't be forced to install special equipment to help those with hearing and vision disabilities enjoy the movies.

But the state has appealed the ruling, which came in a lawsuit by Attorney General Terry Goddard against Scottsdale-based Harkins Theaters.

U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver ruled last week that nothing in federal or state laws gives Goddard the right to force Harkins to install assistive devices at more of its theaters around the state.

Harkins is opening its first Tucson-area theater Friday at the Tucson Spectrum, near West Irvington Road and Interstate 19.

Silver acknowledged that without those devices there are people who will not have access to many of the popular movies. And the judge said the anti-discrimination laws are generally designed to ensure that people are not excluded from places of public accommodation.

But Silver said Harkins is not excluding anyone. And she said what Goddard is asking is that the theater chain actually offer entirely different services to those with hearing and vision problems, something she said the law does not require.

In fact, Silver suggested that what Goddard is demanding stretches the logical intent of the law.

The lawsuit, filed in 2006, said none of the 262 screens Harkins operated at the time — there are now more than 300 —offers "closed caption" technology, which lets hearing-impaired patrons get special equipment that displays the dialogue being spoken by actors on the screen.

Assistant Attorney General Rose Daly-Rooney said in the lawsuit that would not be necessary if there were sufficient offerings with open captions, where the dialog is visible to all at the screening. But she said Harkins, which does offer some open-caption movies, does not provide a sufficient range.

And Daly-Rooney said there are no options at all for those who are visually impaired: None of the Harkins theaters offers "descriptive narration," where someone describes the action occurring on the screen to those who are blind or have limited vision.

The lawsuit said those gaps put the theater chain in violation of state laws that prohibit discrimination by places of public accommodation.

The lawsuit asked Silver to order Harkins to set up more of its 340 theaters statewide — there are 422 nationally — to be able to provide both captioning and descriptive narration services to patrons as well as a $5,000 penalty against the chain.

Silver said the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination "on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment" of services. But she said that language must "be interpreted to have some practical, common-sense boundaries."

She said that has been the conclusion of other federal courts.

"The unvarnished and sober truth is that in many, if not most, cases, the disabled simply will not have the capacity or the ability to enjoy the goods and services of an establishment 'fully' and 'equally' compared to the non-disabled," Silver quoted from a 2000 federal appellate court ruling.

"Simply stated, equal access does not mean equal enjoyment," the judge wrote.

Silver also said the requirements of the state's anti-discrimination laws are no broader than the federal ones she said do not require the special accommodations.

The attorney general has filed an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Andrea Esquer, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, would not comment on how the ruling might affect a parallel lawsuit filed by Goddard's office against the AMC theater chain. That case, unlike the one against Har-kins, is being handled in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Aside from the Phoenix metropolitan area and the new Tucson cinema, Harkins has theaters in Casa Grande, Flagstaff, Prescott Valley, Sedona and Yuma. The chain also has theaters in California, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas, which are not part of the discrimination lawsuit.