Disabled residents defend equal rights law

Noaki Schwartz

NEWPORT BEACH -- Richard Barone wakes up even before the sun has a chance

to peak through the blinds. At 4 a.m., his aide repetitively stretches

his lifeless legs, bathes him, helps him get dressed and moves him into

his wheelchair. By 8 a.m. he’s ready to start his day.

“With everything, if it takes you one hour, it takes me three,” said

Barone, a retired industrial designer.

While many local businesses might see requirements of the Americans with

Disabilities Act as an overwhelming expense, for disabled residents like

Barone, it’s a matter of salvaging a sense of dignity. The legislation

was enacted in January 1990 in order to make public places more

accessible to wheelchairs. At the time, businesses were given two to four

years to comply.

Nearly a decade later, many businesses and public places are still

inaccessible for disabled members of the community.

“It’s discrimination. But not in-your-face discrimination,” said Russell

Handy, an attorney at the Center for Disability Access, a firm that

specializes in cases involving the Americans with Disabilities Act.

He added that the “emancipation proclamation for the disabled” took two

sessions of Congress and 20 years to get passed.

For older places like Balboa Island, however, constructing accessible

bathrooms and ramps is expensive and difficult, small business owners

say. Moreover, some feel that disabled activist Kornel Botosan -- who has

pursued 300 cases against noncompliant businesses since 1996 -- is simply

cashing in on the law.

Botosan has visited a number of local restaurants and filed lawsuits

against them for not providing wheelchair access. Both Snug Harbor on the

peninsula and Wilma’s Patio on the island attributed their respective

closures to the unaffordable legal fees resulting from Botosan’s

lawsuits.

Wilma Staudinger, the owner of Wilma’s Patio, said she was facing nearly

$90,000 in potential legal fees before she relocated her restaurant.

But Handy, who is also Botosan’s attorney, said that making an

establishment wheelchair-accessible is a matter of equality for the

nearly 50 million disabled Americans. And, he said, it is not

unreasonably expensive.

The most common problem encountered by the disabled is accessible parking

-- which he pointed out costs only $300 to mark a space.

“We had one guy that was trapped in the Del Mar fairgrounds for six hours

when he couldn’t get to his parking space because it was blocked by

another car,” Handy said.

Still, a substantial increase in the cost of renovating the Balboa

Theater is in part because of the law, said Michele Roberge, executive

director of the Balboa Performing Arts Theatre Foundation. In order for

the theater to be accessible for both disabled patrons and technicians,

wider aisles, bigger seats, lifts and ramps must be installed.

Dayna Pettit, president of the foundation, is sympathetic but added that

“these old places have always been the same” and said local business

owners shouldn’t have to renovate at the cost of losing their livelihood.

“[Disabled community members] can still wheel in and out of Balboa,” she

said. She added that the foundation is lucky to have so much community

support and that they want the theater to be accessible to everyone.

Being able to do such everyday things as attend a play or movie is what

the law is all about, Handy said. For Barone, however, the changes aren’t

coming fast enough. Despite assurances that his apartment was

wheelchair-accessible before he moved in, Barone said he has trouble

getting around inside his apartment.

“The elevator is not big enough, the front doors aren’t big enough, there

are no cutouts on the curb ... Most [businesses] sympathize and really do

try to accommodate you,” he said. “But other people have the attitude of

‘we don’t have to comply and if you don’t like it here, get out.”’

That’s exactly what Barone plans to do as he searches for a more

wheelchair-friendly home in another city.