'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!"

Auto shop access

Varanese (2196 Frankfort Ave.), a new restaurant on Frankfort Ave., is in a former gas station. That should ensure the entrance is accessible, no? Actually, it was a nice flat entrance, although they've gussied the whole building up so much since its days as an auto shop that you'd never kmow that was its past unless you'd been around here a long time.

There didn't appear to be any access problems I could see. But I failed to check out the restrooms.

Next time!

Just Creations did access nicely

Just Creations, at 2722 Frankfort Ave. is a shop which bills itself as "Louisville's not-for-profit international crafts marketplace," went to quite a bit of effort to get its shop accessible. MetroSweep applied some pressure several years ago, and the management responded, by expanding into an adjacent, vacant storefront which did have a flat entrance, removing the wall between the two stores and ramping the halves. A nice solution -- and a nice attitude about it, too -- unlike Carmichael's, the subject of another blog.

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.