Outlook brightens for disabled access

BOISE – Businesses have been required by federal law to be accessible to disabled customers for the past 15 years, but many in Idaho still aren’t.

Advocates for the disabled are hopeful that a new Idaho law, which takes effect July 1, will make it easier for Idaho businesses to comply and for their disabled customers to do business with them.

“Access to goods and services is a huge issue,” said Mark Leeper, director of Disability Action Center Northwest, which has offices in Moscow, Lewiston and Coeur d’Alene. “I think of places that renovate and redo the steps into their building and don’t put in a ramp. We see that more frequently than we would wish.”

Until now, the only way for an Idahoan to file a complaint under the Americans with Disabilities Act for discrimination at a “place of public accommodation” – a business that’s open to the public – was to contact the U.S. Department of Justice.

“It hasn’t been so easy to get the Department of Justice to be responsive to complaints out of Idaho,” said Leslie Goddard, director of the Idaho Human Rights Commission. But under HB 249, which passed both houses of the Legislature overwhelmingly this year and was signed into law by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, Idahoans will be able to turn to the Idaho Human Rights Commission to file complaints, inquire about the law or seek help complying.

Goddard said the requirements on businesses won’t change, but it’ll be easier to get help.

Kelly Buckland, executive director of the Idaho State Independent Living Council, said, “There are still a lot of businesses that aren’t accessible.”

Buckland, who uses a wheelchair, once filed a complaint against a Utah hotel that had just completed a multimillion-dollar renovation, but hadn’t made any of its rooms accessible in the process. With the narrow hallway inside the hotel room’s door, he found himself trapped in the room – unable to wheel close enough to the door to open it from inside.

“Hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, bars, movie theaters, anything you can think of in the community that you access as a business – department stores, malls – all those things are public accommodations,” Buckland said.

The new Idaho law repeats the requirements of the federal law – businesses have to comply only if they can reasonably do so. Sometimes, that’s simpler than they might think.

Leeper said he’s seen cases where making a restaurant bathroom accessible was as easy as moving a trash can, so people in wheelchairs had room to maneuver near the toilet.

Goddard said she was contacted by an attorney whose office was on the second floor of a historic building, and he worried that he’d have to install an elevator to allow a disabled client to use his services.

“I said no,” she said. “You could probably agree to meet that person in some accessible place – still provide the legal services, but at a place you can both go. It’s just that kind of common-sense way of dealing with the statute.”

Goddard has plenty of similar examples. Restaurant owners who worry that they’ll have to print their menus in Braille can instead have a staff member read the menu to a blind customer, she said. Stores with merchandise on shelves too high for a wheelchair user to reach can have someone available to assist the customer.

Disabled people are part of our communities, Goddard said, and for a business, “It’s in your best interest to have these people be able to come here.”

Leeper, a former state human rights commissioner, said he’s been impressed with the way the commission and its staff are able to deal positively with both a business and a complainant, and he welcomes that approach for disability issues.

“People can call the staff and get technical assistance without fear of reprisal,” he said.

The Human Rights Commission already was responsible for dealing with discrimination complaints in public accommodations and in employment based on race, color, religion, gender or national origin.

The new law adds disability discrimination for public accommodations to its jurisdiction.

Buckland said that when he filed the federal complaint against the Utah hotel, it took two years to resolve.

Said Leeper, “You’ve got a federal Department of Justice that’s stretched thin. They’ll take high-profile cases, and when they do it’s a pretty impersonal kind of a process.”

Goddard said the Department of Justice would be unlikely to respond to a complaint about a wheelchair ramp that’s not cleared of snow, for example, or a cluttered store aisle that keeps disabled customers from maneuvering through. But the Human Rights Commission can help with those things.

Between now and July 1, the commission will be training its staff in new issues it will handle, and also will develop training for businesses and the public. People can call the commission in Boise at (208) 334-2873.

“We have a responsibility to do technical assistance,” Goddard said. “People are welcome to call with questions about compliance. It doesn’t mean they have to file a complaint.”