From Day 1 the ADA has been a “Get Rich Quick” scheme for plaintiff lawyers and disability rights activists. The shakedowns continue . . .
Accessibility is like replacing steps with ramps and making it easier to access a business. This isn’t really a major problem.
The problem is attorneys filing shakedown suits at small businesses that have no real merit. A good law can be abused for nefarious ends.
I am glad to see these lawsuits come to the Bay Area. Perhaps some progressive Bay business owners will be enlightened when they are put out of business by government regulations.
That is a nifty way to put your smaller competitors out of business. Almost like having the Mob on your side only legal.
Lawsuits on disabled-access are not confined to S.F., these are being filed all over the country by law firms that specialize in this. “Specialize” means it’s extortion by blood sucking plaintiff lawyers. Most laws and regulations put in place on disabilities, the environment, consumer safety, etc. are actually more used to suck money out of businesses, landlords and property owners (the productive part of America) than correcting wrongs.
If access was needed for disabled, why not ask the property owner to make a reasonable correction at modest cost, rather than fining first and requiring an expensive and impossible fix? These laws need a cost benefit add on to protect property owners, plus, keep the lawyers out.
I deal with this all the time on new construction projects. There is a document called ADA Guidelines, that we have to follow.
Guidelines...not ‘rules’. There is language in there about doing what is ‘practical’ and ‘possible’. However, due to lawsuits, we treat it as an absolute ‘rulebook’ on all new construction. The result: lawsuits over new construction has dried up. Also, some city and county employees who were ‘ADA Policeman’ (one actually had a badge!) were laid off.
What to do now? File lawsuits on existing buildings.
If the building was constructed before the law was passed, they should be more-or-less exempted from ADA requirements. A small business doesn’t have the luxury of spending a lot of money on improvements to attract a small number of customers.