'HC fixtures not required at this time'

On a recent walk past the newly-constructed building at 2836 Frankfort Ave., I saw this building permit in the window of what is going to become an upscale wine shop.



I stopped to read the thing.

The photo above shows the permit. The "Work Description" reads

Interior reno for "Taste Fine Wine & Spirits" Lodge 820 Live Work Design. All constr shall comply w/2007 KY Bldg Code.

It goes on to discuss various requirements:

1st Time Tenant Existing Sprinklers & 2 HR fire separation walls shall be maintained" and "New restrm off private office shall have HC floor space provided."

Well, well, well," I thought, "here it is right in the permit, where they are requiring new buildings to have an accessible restroom."

Or . . . not.

The sentence continues, "but HC fixtures" -- that's "handicap fixtures," in their lingo, aka accessible fixtures -- "are not required at this time."

Here's a photo that shows a closeup of this wording.



Oh well. So close, but no cigar. Or, in this case, no real access.

One wonders why the heck IPL is requiring a "HP restrm" but without "HP fixtures." It's how they interpret the KY Building Code, no doubt. It's a crabbed and venal interpretation, and from all I've heard in the past, they are remarkably unwilling to change their approach.

Old bar bars entrance -- again

When Café Lou Lou moved out of its startup location on Frankfort Ave. at Pope Street, I heard a rumor that the move was at least in part occasioned by the fact that the buiding -- at 1800 Frankfort Ave., which I believe used to be a bar -- was violently inaccessible, and that folks had complained.

It's an awful old building: A step up to get through the door, which fronts right onto the corner, and then the World's Tiniest Vestibute with one or two more steps and yet another door to get -- finally! -- into the place. Once inside, there are still more levels. But that seems a fairly moot point, since who can get in??

So I was thrilled when Café Lou Lou left -- but I worried about the next tenant, which I suspected would almost certainly be a restaurant as well.

And sure enough...

Guess who's settled into the old bar? Why, none other than the Kentucky BBQ Company, recently known as Bourbon Bros BBQ back when it was down on Brownsboro Road. It was in an accessible location there. It had started out across the street, in that little building that used to be a bakery right on the corner of Frankfort and Crescent Ave., and that, too, had an accessible entrance, I believe.

Ah, but the BBQ guys seem to have not given access a single thought. And now, once again, the old bar building houses a restaurant that is inaccessible.

It would really really be nice if Metro's Dept. of Inspections, Permits and Licenses didn't allow new restaurants to move into inaccessible quarters. Some legal beavers locally have off and on suggested that a "place of public accommodation" (in this case, a restaurant) taking up digs in an inaccessible place probably violates the state Civil Rights Act, not to mention the Americans with Disabilities Act.

But IPL says "hey! That's not our problem!"

What to do about blocked access?

Michelle of consuming louisville has posted a comment about the problems wheelchair users have in the Highlands with cars parking up on the sidewalks on side streets, making the sidewalks impassable.

Cars are a problem -- so are bike racks, bikes, news boxes, big planters, benches bolted to the sidewalk, not to mention those ever-popular outdoor tables in front of coffee shops. Funny how everything can seem to be put onto the sidewalk except ramps. IPL won't permit them to extend onto sidewalks because they block the right of way. (See my blog entry that touches on that.)

Michelle writes,

When cars are preventing access do you know who we should call to address the problem? In the past I've called the local police district but they seem less than pleased with such calls.

I know who I'd call, if I were in a wheelchair: I'd call TV news.

It's sad but amazing how much doesn't change unless a public spotlight shines on it.

I know folks in chairs who have complained repeatedly about folks parking illegally in those accessible parking spots. One guy who use to frequent Jillian's back when it was over there around Baxter used to say he complained so much that the cops came to regard him as a troublemaker -- but the spots never did get cleared.

What's this about?

Many folks don't believe that there's real discrimination against wheelchair users -- it's just that folks don't know what to do, or that providing access costs too much. But too many tales like this one make me think that belief is just a bit simplistic.

Back to the good old organizing tactics:

One person in a wheelchair is a whiner, but two or 3 of them, particularly if they have a crew of supporters, can really make a significant point. That's especially true in Louisville, I think, where lots of wheelchair activism doesn't occur so much -- not like, say, in Denver or Chicago.

Look at the protests Corey Nett's treatment engendered.

I'd love to see similar protests over these impassable sidewalks.

Basa: no sign of access

The other night I was out at Basa Modern Vietnamese (2244 Frankfort Ave.) with friends. We all climbed the 3 steps into this trendy eatery (open less than a year, I think) and I couldn't help thinking, "How were they allowed to open without basic access?" I suspect it's that old "mustn't intrude on the sidewalk" dictum so prized by Louisville's Dept. of Inspections, Permits and Licenses (IPL), the bureaucratic poobahs who oversee the this and that of new restaurants opening.

Imagine my puzzlement and feeling of vast irony upon visiting the restroom during the evening to find it a model of wheelchair access! Nice big door, nice roomy restroom, nice big grab bars positioned correctly... but how could one get into the place?

Marty Rosen, restaurant critic for the C-J, says the place can be gotten into from the back. Maybe that's true; but you sure wouldn't have known it from heading in the way normal folks do. And last Saturday night it sure didn't look like there was a hoppin' back entrance folks were streaming in and out of.

So...

A thumbs'-down to Basa for the lack of a sign.

Fighting laws

A post the other day about Bistro New Albany got me to thinking about the strange mess that has always existed between the requirements for access under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and those helpful guys and gals in local "code enforcement" offices. Here in Louisville that's xxx

This could be long and detailed, but I'll make it short and simple, fudging over a little bit of stuff but giving you the essential low-down:

Physical access is a bricks-and-mortar thing that belongs in the world of construction and renovation. Thus, those overseeing that kind of thing are the ones who would logically tell owners/contractors about design requirements that ensure wheelchair access.

The way IPL and their cohorts nationwide see things, they're enforcing codes -- i.e. building codes.

If the code in use (there are state codes and local codes) require a design feature, they'll ensure it's done (ensuring it's "up to code.")

However:

The federal Disabilities Act is a different kind of beast -- it's not a building code at all. It's a civil rights, anti-discrimination law.

So we have apples and oranges, or maybe convertibles and SUVs, passing each other in the night, ignoring each other.

Yet the ADA requires access. That requirement is on the operator of the establishment.

The ADA says nothing to code enforcement officials. It's not their law to administer.

And so they don't administer it.

So we have a business owner opening their business in an inaccessible building. The code officials don't say anything to them about the lack of access. If the owner's not doing any kind of renovation, they don't even have any contact with code officials, unless they're a restaurant, and then the officials check things like the number of sinks, the number of tables for the space, etc., etc. -- all that restaurant-y stuff. But not construction stuff, and therefore, not access.

The code officials don't have to do a thing about access unless the building is actually being renovated -- walls removed, new fronts put on, that kind of thing.

Meanwhile, though, there is this federal law, that tells the business owner, "no; you can't open your new business in an inaccessible building." But, you see, that's a nondiscrimination requirement -- not a code requirement. So the code folks who are dealing with the business getting opened, don't say a word about access.

Nobody, it seems, ever tells the business owner about the ADA's requirement for access. They don't learn about it until a wheelchair user (or a group like MetroSweep) tells them.

Or so they say. You'd sort of think that by now, almost 20 years after that became a federal law, that most business owners would've caught on.

But maybe not. At least most of them insist they were "never told" they had to be accessible. Which is why they seem to feel so aggrieved when a wheelchair user dares to tell them.

And all this is the short expanation. You don't want to read the long explanation.

Steps roulette

Blue Dog Bakery and Cafe (2868 Frankfort Ave.) has a nice flat entrance. The folks who run the place had the building gutted and renovated, so the inside is new. And because of that, the access portion of the building code kicked in, and so the restrooms are accessible. The store portion flows into the dining room via a ramped flooring with a slope so gentle you have to be thinking about it to realize it's a ramp.

The tables are spacious and wide apart and it's really a pleasure for a wheelchair user to dine here.

A few doors down you'll find a business with a step at the entrance, though.

That's the way it is all along this section of Frankfort Ave., and I don't know why.

When Just Creations first opened, on the corner of Frankfort and Bayly Ave., its door -- right on the corner -- had a step. So Just Creations wasn't accessible.

But the store right next to it, to the east -- at that time a Home Textiles Outlet -- had a completely flat entrance.

Go figure!!

For a long time Just Creations seemed to dick around with the city (the IPL folks) about putting a ramp on the sidewalk. The IPL folks don't seem to like that ( although they allow every other possible type of "intrusion" onto the sidewalk -- 200-lb planters, street trees, bolted down benches, bike racks, sculptures, sidewalk tables and chairs) and they wouldn't let Just Creations put a ramp in.

I still think that "no ramps onto the sidwalk" is an issue ripe for a lawsuit. But nobody's done one.

Anyhow, back to the Doorways of Frankfort Ave:

Just Creations solved its entrance access problem by simply expanding into the adjoining storefront when the Textile Outlet moved, doing just what Blue Dog had done, expanding the business and ramping the interior rooms together.

That can happen elsewhere along Frankfort, and I hope it does.

The only thing I hope for even more is for someone to get IPL to get over their ridiculous "no ramps onto sidewalks" mentality.