Posted on 07/08/2009 9:00:03 AM PDT by rivercat
The owner of a tiny but famous Sacramento burger joint said a lawsuit about handicapped access could shut him down.
The Squeeze Inn, known for huge mounds of melted cheese on its burgers, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the lawsuit alleges.
Kimberly Block, who says she has severly limited use of her legs, argues she suffered "embarrassment and humiliation" and that her civil rights were violated because of inadequate access inside the Fruitridge Road restaurant.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
If you can't climb Mount Everest, whom do you sue? Gotta be somebody.
Once you start the "reductio" on your argument, you get to "absurdem" really fast. Wisdom is that not everyone can do everything. None of us needs to do everything.
And at the same time, without police-state laws like the ADA, "everything" will often find a way to come to you. Do you think nobody wants to sell a burger to a guy in a wheelchair? (Why should everybody have to?) Besides ramps and other devices, which many walk-in businesses would have put in on their own, there are innovations that benefit the wheelchair market along with everyone else. A decade ago, who thought about drive-up windows? Now they're everywhere. No ADA storm-trooper-inspector would have come up with the drive-up window.
With ADA and its absurd, expensive consequences, businesses are killed and countless innovations are never dreamed of.
Don't forget youtube, etc.
I don’t think a place should be forced to spend A SINGLE PENNY to accomodate the handicapped or anyone else.
It’s a private business.
Even if he didn’t want ANY handicapped people in his establishment, I’d support his right.
With a free market, somebody will step up and provide facilities that accomodate the handicapped, with an eye towards turning a profit.
Any other motive is just stupid.
Are you suggesting that if he showed up there, wanted a burger, and said he might need some help please, that nobody would help him? Some great businesses would be sunk if they have to become wheelchair accessable. Especially small funky places designed in the 1940 or 50s.
So a business that has no room on their lot to provide a proper ramp has no choice but to shut down? To install a proper ramp would extend into their parking lot and violate zoning laws because they then would be below the minimum number of slots required. While I sympathize with your cousin I disagree that a business should be put in the position of providing wheelchair access or closing down. Does your cousin’s “right” to a burger trump the business owners “right” to make said burger?
There are lawyers who do nothing but drive around town looking for ADA ‘issues’ and then go find one of their regular clients in whose name to file the suit. It’s a whole industry unto itself.
Yes - but Granny wouldn’t hear of it - and I really can’t blame her - she had Macular Degeneration and had a relationship with this Doc for some years and he really was excellent to her.
I don’t think all businesses should be required to ADA up, but health care facilities should - this office could have been fixed with two small concrete ramps.
Can you really tell a business owner with a tiny business like this that they have to rebuild their building and put themselves into debt for years in order to accommodate one or two customers.
It’s clear from the photo that the building would have to be rebuilt. He would have to close for at least a week and probably a month while the work was being done. From experience, I can say that it would cost over $100k and may subject the owner to further code compliance work that could add a couple hundred thousand extra to the bill. Often once you start working on a property, you lose the grandfather clauses for other things that are not in current compliance.
Is it worth potentially destroying a business for a couple customers?
This is acceptable to the fascists. It's their way or nothing.
What are the odds that ms kimberly is an ACORN?
No, I don’t think you can. Can you work towards a compromise that satisfies the business owner as well as the disabled patron? Yes...
Probably directly from a tenth-generation copy of a lawsuit from 10 years ago that she only had to sign, after putting her name in one blank and the restaurant name in another.
Any other motive is infringement.
“we always find a workaround.”
May I compliment you on the word “workaround”! That
epitomizes the right attitude instead of just Bitch’n. Too bad more people don’t see it that way.
Go to another place that has room for a ramp, & stop whining. The world doesn’t owe you a clear path to every place on the planet.
Oh wait!!! With her mind set - she'll sue because the window is too high!!
Oh wait!!! With her mind set - she'll sue because the window is too high!!
More details from a Sacramento Bee article. Surprise, surprise, there’s a serial wheelchair-chaser involved:
“Block is represented by Jason K. Singleton, a Eureka-based attorney who has filed other ADA suits in the state.”
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/crime/archives/2009/07/suit-alleges-ad.html
I get your point...
About 10 years ago, Clint Eastwood was sued for wheelchair access to a historic Inn that he owns. He won. The story is here: http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/Artists/E/Eastwood_Clint/2000/09/30/758129.html
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