ADA accessibility lawsuits causing headaches for small business owners

A tray of asymmetrical chocolate lumps balances on the counter behind the espresso machine, where owner Jean-Marc Gorce is slinging a cappuccino. Scotch-taped to the walls, clippings about the mom-and-pop truffle shop display accolades from Gourmet, the New York Times and 7 x 7.

At the window, a few stools share a high counter; outside, two tables perch on the sidewalk. Cluttered but quaint, off-kilter but authentic, XOX Truffles is just the sort of place that one might associate with North Beach's motley character.

Yet one of its design anomalies - a step from the curb into the shop - may turn out to be its downfall. On Jan. 26 Gorce and his wife, Casimira, were served with an Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility lawsuit, in which the plaintiff, Patrick Connally, claimed he had visited the store on six separate occasions and was prevented from entering the shop in his wheelchair.

The parties are currently in settlement negotiations, with Gorce praying to avoid a trial.

He said the cost of the suit has already forced him to lay off his three full-time employees and man the shop by himself. If the case ends up in court, he says, legal costs may result in the shuttering of his business. "I don't sleep anymore," he says. "This is has been a real nightmare."

Gorce's refrain is not an uncommon one. In the past few months, a rash of ADA accessibility lawsuits has descended on neighborhoods across San Francisco from North Beach to Clement Street, from Polk Street to Geary Boulevard, enraging many local merchants and neighborhood advocates.

Some invoke Clint Eastwood who, when his Carmel restaurant, Misson Ranch, was hit by an ADA lawsuit in 2000, famously claimed these suits amounted to "legalized racketeering."

On the whole Clint Eastwood deal..

I lived in the Monterey area near Carmel in 2000, right before I moved to Nevada. I remember hearing about this whole ordeal.

Basically there is ONE guy in the Monterey area that makes a living off going around to stores and suing them for ADA violations. He is well known to the local merchants there.

Yep, XOX Truffles definitely has a 'curb' at their front door, about 4" to 6" high per Google map street view. And there's no way to put in a permanent ramp. The hippie owners are so screwed.

And a couple doors down to the North, on the corner of Columbus Ave and Greenwich St there's Roselie's New Looks clothing store. It has a HUGH sign in the window, "MOVING AFTER 50 YEARS".

The SF flower people and their ilk brought this on themselves. So zero sympathy from me.

I have plenty of sympathy for people who are truly “disabled”, but I have also known folks who would never under ANY circumstances think of pressing such an issue - they just adapts and move on.

One of our table mates on a cruise several years ago was wheelchair bound. He was a paraplegic. He had a pretty nice wheelchair with changeable wheels. When we met them for shore excursions, he just had someone help him quick-change his wheels to some that looked like mountain bike tires. Went ashore at Costa Maya - and you think there were ANY ADA-type accommodations? Of course not. Yet nothing stopped him. It wasn’t about what he could not do, it was what he could do.

How much do you want to bet that if the guy in this lawsuit had simply asked for assistance, that the shop owner or an employee would have gladly helped out.

But it is all about folks who choose the “victim” mentality over being an overcomer.

Stopped for gasoline in Russellville, Arkansas one time. The gas station just off the interstate we stopped at was a fairly small convenience story with only a couple of gas pumps outside. When I pulled up and put gas in, a fellow in a van pulled up. He honked his horn several times and started yelling at the store. The ONE employee working could not hear him. The guy got out of his van and stood there by the gas pumps. So when I asked him what was going on, he said that he was disabled and was entitled to someone pumping his gas for him.

When I went inside, I told the young fellow what was going on and he asked what he could do? He would lose his job if he left the store even for a minute. I told him I didn’t know.

When I returned to my car, the guy was back in his van honking the horn again. I told him that the poor attendant was by himself and couldn’t leave the store - the guy just went on a rant about how he could sue them and on and on....

They guy could climb in and out of his van, he could pump some stupid gas...

But it is the mentality.

How about a sign that says Ring the bell and we’ll assist you into our store?

Liberals believe that it would be demeaning for someone in a wheelchair to be lifted onto or off of a bus, or for such a person to be given taxpayer-subsidized cab fare (under a rule that a disabled person who takes a cab between places served by a bus would pay standard bus fair, with the city reimbursing the difference), but it is not demeaning for a such a person to force other people to wait while a wheelchair ramp is operated.

I suspect the key aspect of liberalism is the belief that someone who is only dependent on government is 'independent', while someone who depends on other (non-government) people--even in a much smaller way--is not.

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