Shops on foundations - Good or Bad?

[Caladbolg]

Hi everyone I hope I have the right threat here for this question, wanted to know what you thought about shops, bars and resteraunts on higher ground like a foundation.

Since September I started going to tech / college (childcare course if you're interested) and I fell in love with the street / town it's on easy to get around and it's more or less a straight street. Everywhere you go there's somewhere to eat chinese food, mcdonalds, pizza, paninis, subway, and a cornershop sounds great right? Now these places are all on foundations or something it looks very well but no ramps :/

I'm in a wheelchair and not afraid to state this, my two favourite places to eat are restricted or off limits to me ¬_¬ one of them isn't so bad cause the counter is right at the door so the girl inside sees me and serves me asap but that's not the point :/ the law states that all newly built places must have disabled access :/ doesn't say anything about old places and listed buildings.

I wrote a letter to subway a while ago saying it was impossible for me to get to the counter on my own however i didn't sent it cause the next day there were fixtures being done (and still are) to the shop. This week I found out they replaced their 6" step with two 3" steps :/ I get the logic behind that I do! but I was there at least three times and had to deal with the problem. Surely you'd think the staff would mention they have a regular disabled customer that can't get to their counter???

[Michael Swayne]

I would think that the staff has mentioned it to the corporate offices. It just takes some time for corporate to allocate money to improve the individual franchises. This is especially true for something like a "family-owned" McDonald's. What I mean here is, a local owner can set prices and what's on the menu, but the corporate office provides the ingredients.

The owners or management have to file the paperwork to get the funds to improve their establishment. This takes time, sometimes in upwards of at least one year.

One way to speed up this progress is to send that letter you wrote. If it is well-written and non-threatening (keyword), they will most likely cater to the needs of an individual store. However, if you say in this letter "If something is not done, then my friends and I will never buy food here again!", the corporate offices will probably laugh and say "Who needs your money, we make millions of dollars a year!"

Another idea is to fill out the survey cards that usually are on the counter, or call the "How's my service" or "Customer Care/Support" number that appears on your receipt. This way your response will be read or heard by someone.

And remember, there is power in numbers. Get your friends, co-workers, family, anyone to do this as well. Remember to tell them that niceness is key. If they get into a mean spirit with their E-mails and phone calls, not only will they be placed in File 13 (trashcan), but the local restaurant will suffer because of it. The store you are going to depends on the corporate money for ingredients and will probably be deemed as a low performing store because of it.

Another way to go about it is to talk with your local government. They may not have a lot of money to throw around, but they do have some power. Contact whoever you need to (I am in America, so whoever is your equivalent to a council member). Even local charites and organizations can sometimes fund ramps or other things needed.

[Caladbolg]

This is a waiting game, as it stands I'm able to get my orders from a friendly pizza / panini place, if I really wanted I could have them deliver it to my tech (which is behind the shop) but I'll only do that if it's raining.

I came from one of the biggest 'special needs' school in Northern Ireland which is very focused on disability rights. I'm doing a placement there soon so I'll be informing them of this little thing.

I'm just one person, but forest fires can start with just one spark

[Aerif]

Whilst I agree that more needs to be done in the UK to help the disabled, geting ramps placed everywhere is just impractical.

For one, getting ramps is expensive, especially on older buildings. There's planning permission required for the bulding itself (residential permission can usually take months, so commercial is probably worse), permission from the council to build onto the street, the prospect of defacing an historical building, health and safety stuff to get through (ramps can be very dangerous, icy conditions can block all access to a store, they can trip up passerbys etc.), contractors to hire and pay, the possible reduction of thoroughfare to install the ramp, et al..

With chain-brands, they usually need to get permission from the head office before being allowed to make modifications. With franchises of chains or independent retail outlets, the cost of a ramp could proabably cost several days worth of profit. And generally cause a big disturbance. The smaller the business the less likely they are too afford it. There may be some government subsidies for things like this, but it really is a lot of work to put in.

My mother often complains about the lack of wheelchair accessibility and nappy-changing rooms, since she is a carer for disabled young adults, so she's drilled it into me as to how much of an inconveniance it can be with the reduced mobility. But it all comes down to money and a majority-rules sort of thing, if 99.9% of clients don't need specialist accessability then it usually isn't made a top-priority. Especially if the cost of a ramp dwarves the amount of money made from customers who need a ramp to use the services.

In legal terms, it's a bit of a funny subject. It's not discrimination to not have a ramp if the majority of your customers are able-bodied, because if that counted as discrimination then you could claim that shops that don't provide braille signage are discriminatory against deaf people, restaraunts that don't provide non-meat dishes are discriminatory against vegetarians etc.

I'm sorry if I come off as insensitive, I agree that public services and new builds should be wheelchair/pushchair accessible. But there's no way of accomodating everyone all the time.

[Caladbolg]

You're 100% right Albha! There is a legal issue with it. Lets take the 'good' place i can't get into for example,

I just need to make an appearance and the girl sees me through the window and comes out to me

now the not as nice one,

There's a good few yards (my mum's estimate, don't know how long a yard is) between where i sit in subway and where the counter is, take into account i will be lower down from sitting in the wheelchair AND being below the steps :/

able bodied people queue at the counter thus blocking my view to the staff (and the staff's view to me). The financial and legal side of things may take another few years to change but socially there should be minor attempts to let me get served... I think so anyway.