Disabled Vermonters Target Inaccessible Businesses
Author: By Peter Hirschfeld Vermont Press BureauDate: Aug 21, 2008
"I go around the streets of Montpelier and have been interested in entering some of the businesses we targeted, and I've found they're inaccessible," said Harold Nadeau.
Nadeau, a West Charleston resident, works four days a week at the Vermont Center for Independent Living in Montpelier and uses a motorized wheelchair.
"I thought it would be a wake-up call for the city that there are a lot of people out there that would be visiting businesses and using services if they physically were able to," he said.
Most of the protest signage had been removed by storeowners and employees by the time morning commuters headed through Main Street, State Street and Langdon Street. Ericka Reil, with Green Mountain Adapt, said the first-of-its-kind action in Montpelier was intended to amplify a decades-old call for equal access.
"Sometimes you have to scream to be heard," Reil said. "This is one part of that scream."
Nancy Martel, owner of "Pinky's" on State Street, said she would have preferred a one-on-one conversation to the more aggressive approach adopted by protesters. The deli was targeted for its one-step entrance, though Martel said a ramp in the back entrance is wheelchair accessible.
"Instead of doing that all over our windows they could have come talked to us," Martel said. "I felt like they kind of put us on defense, but we really don't want to be. We're more than willing to work with anybody."
Martel said the business does whatever it can to accommodate wheelchair users and is eager to find out how it can be more responsive to the needs of people with disabilities. She also said that she looked into revamping the storefront to make it more wheelchair-friendly before she opened the business, but that structural hurdles rendered the project financially unfeasible.
"We just don't have the money to do that," she said.
A number of store owners in this historic downtown said Thursday that the age and design of their buildings pose financial barriers to wheelchair accessibility.
The American with Disabilities Act requires all buildings constructed after 1991 to comply with accessibility standards, though few Montpelier structures are that new. And under Vermont law, store owners in older buildings can be forced to comply only if the project is "readily achievable," according to Robert Appel with the Vermont Commission on Human Rights. That generally means that if the projects pose an undue financial burden to companies, they will not be forced to comply.
"It's a significant area of concern to the commission," Appel said of the widespread inaccessibility. "It's a problem. It's a serious problem."
Reil said the eight members of Green Mountain Adapt who papered businesses Thursday will return in coming weeks to speak with owners about possible solutions.
Deborah Lisi-Baker, executive director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living, which was not involved in the protest, said that the organization consistently fields calls from people with disabilities who are frustrated by lack of accessibility in the city.
"Certainly we're willing to work with cities and small businesses to come up with strategies for eliminating barriers," Lisi-Baker said.
She said that able-bodied residents may also want to consider the long-term viability of inaccessible establishments, given the aging demographics of Vermont residents.
"It's important to ensure that customers who can get in that door today will be able to get in the door 10 years from now," she said.
Reil said the effort isn't intended to antagonize, but rather to remind the able-bodied population that many of their fellow citizens are unable to enjoy the same freedoms they do.
"We've seen great progress with these kinds of in-your-face actions," Reil said. "But we want to be part of the solution, too. We're not saying they have to do it on their own."
