A.D.A. WHAT?

Yesterday was our organizations celebration of the 15^th year anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. That huge piece of unfunded legislation which was to make a better, more accessible world for people with disabilities. The event was small and broadcast on the Internet. The usual

Panel made up of local disability advocates, employers and ADA coordinators facing an audience of folks with disabilities usually from the major disability agencies: independent living center, transit authority, DD Council. There was even a member of the local press, young, female laboriously taking notes the entire event. The reason I lead off with this even of yesterday is to exhibit the irony of my lunch experience today.

The city is hot, boiling unforgiving sidewalks scorch feet of those forgetting or who do not have shoes. I needed to get a bottle of water that I can stash in the freeze to solidify for the long hot trip home this evening. The only place I can get some bottled water is down on main street. There is a little Rite-Aide drug store there. So, I bolted at lunch to get to the drug store to get some water. It just so happens that up the street from the drug store is an inter4sting Deli called Gandolfo’s. I will try to get an image of this place tonight when I Trax home. I have heard a ton of good things about this little deli This deli is up a mighty flight of stair—totally inaccessible but that is OK. There is always Reasonable Accommodation. I came to a stop in front of the place, it was just after 12:00 so there was plenty of traffic of folks going up the stairs to a perfect lunch.

I decided not to use my “I am disabled and deserve to eat at this place face” and use my “I am an OK guy with a disability just trying to get some lunch and I am welling to go half way” face. I stopped three different people who were just starting to climb the stairs:

Me

Hey? Would you tell them there is a guy in a wheelchair

Down here wanting to order

Blue button down with tie

Uh…sure no problem.

They assured me they would do the request and that was the last I heard of it. I waited a half an hour and no one ever came down to take my order. I was getting hot and pissed. I finally called the place with my cell( which I should have done at the onset). The girl I got on the phone was perky and cool and more then happy to bop down the stairs to take my order. So what happened to the three nit wits who said they would take my request forward. Did the just forget, I can see that once but three times? Did they think “Oh well, he is not my problem” or did they think I would just get tired of waiting and leave. Not me I was going to get my due. I called I ordered and I got my sandwich and tore back to the office because by then I was running late. I was about 15 minutes late by the time I got back to the office.

A.D.A what a joke! ADA is often held as the holy grail for people with disabilities. How many gimps actually really knows what the document says or even cares until they get written up at work, passed over for a promotion or passed by a bus. I hear their requests everyday. True. I know I could launch a law suit or try to do so but I know I would get shot down by a “reasonable accommodation backfire”. In this case courts (if the case got that far” would say there are a number of other Gandolfo Deli’s round this city all accessible to wheelchair using patrons. I know this, but I work downtown, I want to eat downtown when I want to take myself out to the deli and I am willing to let them come down and serve me, downstairs, under the window happy just to be served.