Wheelchair-riding Linda Slone, 64, is suing 39 shops in her neighborhood for not being handicapped-accessible.
The legal crusade is netting her thousands, but Slone, who cannot walk because of polio, insists she is simply championing the rights of the disabled.
“If you think this is a money-making scheme, you’re dead wrong,” said Slone, a speech pathologist.
The Florida-based Weitz Law Firm, which represents Slone, “also represents Zoltan Hirsch, a Brooklyn double amputee who The Post revealed last year filed 147 suits citing the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
Scott Greenfield wonders what the brownstones of Columbus Avenue will look like by the time the shopowners and landlords somehow manage to completely ADA-proof them.
13 Comments
“If you think this is a money-making scheme, you’re dead wrong,” said Slone, a speech pathologist.
Fine, donate all the money to charity…
Think she does great work.
Handicapped-accessibility is not only neccessary for disabled person.
As a mother of five I always had great problems entering shops with my baby stroller.
And now, my parents getting older and the demographic development bringing babyboomers to age, I see how grateful elder people are if the do not have to climb stairs.
I think more than only disabled persons will profit from those necessary changes.
Ms. Sloane says, “I, along with anybody else with a disability, has the right to go wherever they choose to go and not have to be dissuaded or inconvenienced or even apologetic.”
As the South Park creators might say, THIS IS WHAT CERTAIN HANDICAPPED PEOPLE ACTUALLY BELIEVE.
Hell, she’d get more traction if she’d move to Alaska and sue the Feds for access to Mt. McKinley. (Though Mark Inglis, a double amputee, has climbed Everest) That’s no more than what she thinks she deserves. Every building in every city all across the country. Linda, you should run for President.
I see a great future for bulldozers. Flatten all mountain and hills; fill in every valley and gulch. Then we can move onto paving the rivers and removing sand from the beaches.
That’s right fellas. Screw the disabled. if they can’t get in to a dozen places, there’s probably a dozen elsewhere that they can access.
They’re like the damned blacks back in the 50s and 60s trying to get in to places. And you see what that led to – now they have equal access with you and me. How is that fair?
The difference, Frank, is that it didn’t cost huge gobs of money to comply with equal access for Blacks. Heck, it may have wound up cheaper, given the costs of sign and separate (albeit usually inferior) facilities for Blacks.
Everything is reasonable when some one else is paying the tab.
Bob
Frank,
Several years ago the City of Pittsburgh started demanding that restaurants become handicapped accessible. Several of the downtown restaurants applied for permits to build wheelchair ramps from the sidewalk. These requests were turned down because the City said that the ramps would restrict the flow of pedestrian traffic. So several of these restaurants put ramps in the back of their buildings and setup tables that had room for wheelchairs. Many also setup free handicapped parking spaces. Things were fine until, somebody said that it was demeaning to have to come in through the back entrance and sit near the kitchen and filed a lawsuit. So the restaurants removed the ramps and the free parking spaces per the settlement and now just pay the City a $250 fine per day.
By the way, both of my parents were confined to wheelchairs for the last several years of their lives. I was responsible for getting them in and out of places that they wanted to go.
Right on schedule, we have someone comparing the ADA lawsuit mill to the civil rights movement of the 60s. If you are against ADA lawsuits run amok, well, you are pretty much a racist!
The main problem with the ADA is that there is no hard definition for “reasonable accommodation”.
She is doing a service for people with disabilities. The businesses should be useable by all! Two thumbs up to you Ms. Slone!
Frank: Just in case you were serious, the other difference is that it’s not as though disabled people are entering places and being told to leave; or that there are signs in the windows saying flat-out “no disabled persons welcome”; or that a shopowner would ignore a disabled customer who asked for assistance.
There’s a train station near my house that is up on a hill about 2 stories tall. It has a massive wheelchair ramp to accomodate the difference in height from the parking lot to the landing all in a covered but open concrete pavillion that includes the stairs. The ramp is easily 4 times the size of the stairs. For the number of people who need to access the terminal that would need to use ramp, it would seem to make more sense to follow the gradual burm that was created to make the parking lot, put the handicapped parking right there and just pave a sidewalk up to the landing. Then we could get sued because we “treat” them different.
Frank, you forgot to mention the Nazis….