You can't get there from here

The sign tells the first part of this story: The "handicap" entrance to the Derby City Antique Mall is around back -- same area as the loading dock. The building was originally an old school -- used to be called Hikes Graded School in the old days. Now it's an antique mall. See all the steps at the front entrance?




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Around back, way high up next to the door we see this sign:




And here's the entrance:




Ignore if you will, the dangerous grate. Ignore the steep ramp.You can't see it, you can only see the ledge next to it. But there is a ramp -- steep, but usable.
Except when you roll down to the doors -- they're locked.

"Flat" isn't the only issue with access

What's wrong with this picture? Looks like nothing's wrong. But looks can be deceiving.




I took this photo coming out of my polling place. It's a flat entrance. Once you get in, it's all flat. It's flat all the way to where you vote.

The problem? The doors. They are so incredibly heavy I had a really hard time opening them. When I went in, I held the door open for an older lady using a walker. She was "frail": no way she'd've been able to pull the door open.

And forget it if you in a wheelchair.

Is this polling site accessible? No.

But the officials certainly think it is.

Where is this? It's at a church; but it's such a typical problem that this photo could serve for countless other polling sites. When we talk about 'access' we need to consider what we really mean.

'Separate-but-equal' sinks

Couldn't resist getting a photo of this "handicap access solution" I found recently. The venue isn't important. The concept is important.

The concept is "separate but equal." You have a restroom in your building. It's supposed to have levers for the sink faucets. So far, so good. You're OK with that. . . But, note, only for one of the sinks. The "special" one.

"Special" has done more to harm the cause of access than about anything I can think of.

Why aren't all restroom stalls larger, for example? Why does the stall door open outward only on the "accessible" one?

Aside from accessible parking, which really does mean spots need to be set aside, close in, I can think of very very few instances when it doesn't make more sense to just make EVERY COMPONENT accessible:

• Flat entrance, rather than ramps-and-steps
• Automatic doors, rather than manual doors and one "special" door with a "button"
• Light switches lowered throughout
• Wider hallways throughout. . .

The list can go on and on.

One benefit of the avoidance of "special" -- that is to say, integration -- is that if you can't segregate out those items that are "special," it's much harder to point to this or that as being "too costly" -- as in, "That ramp cost us xxx" or "That special automatic door cost xxx" -- if the building is simply "barrier-free" then it's just "barrier-free." (You don't hear the term "barrier-free" as much nowadays. Wonder why?)

The other benefit of integration is, of course, the avoidance of stigma. If it's all the same, no one need feel embarrassed by needing the "special" entrance, toilet stall, menu, seating...

Enuf said.

I'd love to get some comments about ths idea.

"This door to remain unlocked..."

The sign on the door leading out to a side patio read, " This door to remain unlocked when building is occupied." Big white letters on a dark gray background. Can't miss it.

I'm sure it was put up by the fire marshall. Restaurants by law have to have more than one exit.

But it made me think about how often the "handicapped" door remains locked.

That was my experience at the Butterfly Garden. The place I was at where I saw the sign is a new place, just finished being built. Accessible, yes -- so that's not the issue.

The issue is about enforcement.

It has been my experience that almost every business open to the public -- restaurants certainly -- know very clearly what all the fire code requirements are. And don't dare disobey them. What happens if they do? Do they get a big fine? Do they get shut down?

The fire marshal almost certainly required that sign to be posted -- it's a fire code requirement, I'm pretty sure, that a restaurant have 2 exits. The door boasting the sign was the second exit, after the main front door.

Wouldn't it be great, I thought, if such a sign were required on any non-main door that provides the sole "handicap access?" How many of those doors remain locked! That too, is illegal...

But it seems far fewer business owners are concerned about breaking access laws.

Hmmm....

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!"

An embarrassing entrance -- but no bigotry? I don't think so...

Butterfly Garden Cafe (1327 Bardstown Road) moved several years ago into its present location, a fully inaccessible building. MetroSweep eventually sued them about it.

Time passed, though -- a lot of time, to my way of thinking -- and nothing got done -- took forever -- then I learned the matter had been resolved; that the place had in fact installed a ramp.

But it was the kind of solution that still manages to stick it to the crips, so to speak, and I can't help but wonder why it was accepted by the folks who use wheelchairs.

I had not actually been there until yesterday. I suppose in a sense I was boycotting it, although that's really too strong a word. I simply didn't want to patronize any place that had been so unwilling to provide access, and then been so nasty, to my way of thinking, in its final solution.

So it wasn't as though I didn't know I'd find something that irritated me.

Still I was surprised when I actually parked in the back parking lot and my friend and I made our way to the cafe, only to learn that the only real way to get to the entrance was to go along the side of the building between the cafe building and the building to its south. And that pathway consisted of the ramp, rising up nicely.

Well this could've been great! I was, for a few moments, pleasantly surprised.

That pleasant feeling would not last, though.

When you get to the top of the ramp, you've come about two-thirds of the way to the front of the building, and you're at a side door.

It's there that things fall completely apart.

Because the door you come to opens directly into ... a diner's table!

Yes, the door, although it was in fact unlocked and had a lever handle, was a door no one would ever go through. You'd bump right into diners! Can you imagine any wheelchair user with the chutzpah to do that??

I'm sure that's just how Butterfly Garden intended it -- and, I guess, MetroSweep accepted this "solution."

To "really" get into the cafe -- that is, for all the normal ladies the Cafe is really intended for -- you move forward from that landing to a set of steps, which you walk back down, then walk around the front to the front porch, walk back up those steps, and up yet another step, to finally get into the building housing the cafe.

How do I begin to explain what's wrong with this picture?

Yes, the door at the top of the ramp was unlocked. I opened it just to see. Sure enough, when I did, the diners at the table in front of the door looked horrified, as well they might. Was somebody actually trying to come in this way? they seemed to be thinking.

Can you just imagine how it would feel to be someone in a wheelchair coming up and -- well, they'd see that the door opened dab smack into a cafe table, and I suspect would be too embarrassed to go in. Or, if they did persist, what a scene there'd be, with folks jumping up, moving tables, water spilling, hostess wringing her hands.... a really wonderful welcome, designed to make the crip feel as though they are the wrongdoer, not Butterfly Garden.

But, as you know, nobody is bigoted against disabled people. Nobody wishes them any harm. This was just the best the poor Butterfly Garden could do.

You might believe that, unless you notice the expanse of yard at the front of the building, which could have easily been ramped.

You might believe that, unless you think about how easily the cafe could have made that side entrance into its main entrance, simply by rearranging furniture and the hostess station, entailing virtually no cost other than a couple of hours' work moving things around.

But they didn't mean any harm? If you believe that, try reading this.

Louisville's heaviest restaurant doors

Well, maybe not the heaviest, but certainly right up there. They're the doors at the entrance to Red Pepper Chinese Restaurant (2901 Brownsboro Road). Great food, but heavy, heavy doors!

And here's the kicker: They've got a massive set of setps up to the entrance, but a great ramp right next to them. The place was initially built as an Indian restaurant (in the late 1980s or early 1990s) and it's clear the owner believed in that "if it sits up high, it's more impressive" fallacy so beloved of architects. But code officials, I guess, made them do a ramp along with the steps. So no complaints there.

But those doors! First off, they're massive. Probably 10 feet high, wood, carved -- probably supposed to invoke the doors into old Indian palaces, I suspect. And they have these big iron rings on them like old fashioned door pulls. No levers here, no siree!

I can just barely pull them open, and I've got a LOT of upper body strength.

I can never figure out why code officials can be so good on some aspects of access and so ignorant -- or maybe it's just lackadaisical -- on others.

The weight of doors seems to be one that they pretty much ignore. They certainly have ignored it here.

The right hook

The other day I was at Uncle Tubby's Pizza over in Jeffersonville (103 Quartermaster Ct., Jeffersonville). Tubby's is in the old Quartermaster facililty, which has been redone into a kind of mall. New stores in all of it. And all of it, it appears, accessible!

And there I saw an access feature I've longed to see -- but never have:

In the restroom, in the accessible stall, the coat hook inside the door was lowered. A woman in a wheelchair could actually hang her purse on it!

Sad that this has to be such an amazing sight.

Most of those stalls, even when they're roomy enough, even when the grab bars are installed correctly -- and even when the stall door actually locks, which is infrequent -- the stupid hook is way way too high to use if you're in a wheelchair.

And it's so very very simple to do correctly!

Kudos to whoever installed the restroom there.

Primo doors

Primo (445 E. Market St.) is in a building that seems to have been completely renovated. Primo faces on Market and has a flat entrance, although I personally think the doors are heavy. A wheelchair user would have to have somebody open them for her.

The restroom isn't in the restaurant. It's back in the hallway of the building itself. It's accessible -- that is, what's required by code -- but the number of doors one has to go through to get there -- and the distance -- makes this less than ideal.