Making it Easy<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>Page 2

South Side businesses find complying with disability access standards insn't the obstacle they'd feared Continued

One of three changing rooms was wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair, meaning the store was in compliance on that issue. The doorways to the store's restrooms, however, were too narrow. So Reddy suggested that they not be made available to customers and therefore not require remodeling.

After the review, Reddy and representatives of the South Side development group meet with business owners to go over the results and talk about what could be reasonably done, how to proceed and what couldn't be done.

"They find out that we don't have three heads and breathe fire," said Joan Stein, president of Accessibility Development Associates. "Our goal is to help them find ways of removing barriers. We make it very nuts and bolts and very hands on."

Mangelsdorf, owner of Renaissance Woman, has already ordered the bell and placard and is considering purchasing a portable ramp that could be used at the entrance with or without financial help from Niederberger, her landlord, who has not made a commitment. Renaissance Woman is a boutique specializing in women's larger sizes, 12W through 34W.

"People who come into this store are so grateful to find what they consider to be pretty clothes, but we have to make it possible for them to come in and be independent and shop," she said. "They have a right to be able to come into someone's store."

Brenda DaRe, 28, a skills trainer and peer counselor at the Three Rivers Center for Independent Living, was one of the plaintiffs in the suits filed by the Disabilities Law Project. A wheelchair user, she finds it difficult to patronize South Side businesses, a hot spot for young people.

"I'm still in my 20s. My friends want to go out and do things, and the South Side is a big draw, and I'm not able to participate in that. It's frustrating to me and my friends because they want to have me along," she said.

"And it need not be this way," she added. "There are other cities where not only the physical access but the attitudinal access is so much better."

John Tague, another plaintiff in the suits, said some South Side taverns have offered to carry him inside. But he says his motorized chair, with him in it, weighs over 300 pounds, too much to easily lift.

"I don't want anyone to hurt themselves or me," he said.

To Tague and DaRe, the most positive result of the law suits filed by the Disabilities Law Project has been a cooperative effort to standardize guidelines for small-business compliance in the city.

This is particularly important to businesses in historic districts such as the South Side, where physical alterations to buildings must be approved by an Historic Review Commission.

The guide book is being developed by a working group that includes representatives from the disability community, the mayor's office, the city planning and public works departments, the Bureau of Building Inspections and the Historic Review Commission, among others.

The guide, which suggests sample ways of dealing with particular problems, is expected to be available soon, said Chuck Keenan, the city's ADA coordinator.

"We do have some competing forces," Keenan said. "One is to work with the historic nature of the district and the other is to abide by the ADA. The booklet will give business owners guidance on how they can work through both."

The whole process started in late 1999 when the Disabilities Law Project sent letters to a number of businesses along East Carson saying they had barriers to their establishments and had obligations under the ADA to remove them.

The letters were met with mixed results. Some owners immediately had their properties assessed by architects or other consultants familiar with the law's requirements and took action where it was feasible to do so.

Other business owners either did not reply or resisted. About a dozen of them were sued the following year, said Jana Finder, a staff attorney with the Disabilities Law Project who is representing the plaintiffs.

Some of the suits have been amicably settled with agreements to make access available. Legal action was delayed for those business owners that expressed positive interest. A few building owners are continuing to litigate, she said.

Reluctant business owners sometimes fail to see a problem. Finder said she frequently hears excuses that they don't have patrons with disabilities or do not need to remove barriers because they will carry wheelchair customers over steps or other obstacles.

"First of all, it's risky trying to lift someone in a wheelchair, and basically impossible if that person is using a motorized wheelchair," Finder said. "The point of the ADA is independent access. A customer shouldn't have to wait outside, perhaps in the dark, hoping to be noticed because an architectural barrier prevents him from getting anywhere near the door."

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