Most stadiums have a fair number of disabled seats set aside. However there is no guarantee that you will have enough disabled people to fill them. When I take my dad to a ball game, there always seem to be a lot of empty seats and wheelchair spaces even if the section is sold out.
If an event is sold out, is there a point where a team can decide that they won’t fill their wheelchair spots and open it up or general sale? Or does the ADA make leaving the seats empty just a cost of doing business?
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act covers accessibility of public accommodations, which includes sports venues. This is a fairly detailed yet somewhat vague law that sets out requirements that building owners have to follow.
Public venues like movie theaters and sports arenas can be very tricky in terms of seating arrangements. Movie theaters don’t want you upset if a tall person sits in front of you, so they have stadium seating. Ditto for sports venues. Where it really gets tricky is that the ADA tells venue owners that wheelchair seating has to have comparable line-of-sight to the field, court, screen, or whatever that non-wheelchair seating has, and that the view can’t be blocked by people who are standing up. They also have to be available at multiple price points; you can’t just have one section be wheelchair seating and be done with it. Therefore, as you’ve probably noticed, wheelchair seating tends to be in the front of the section or in the rear.
I can’t find a specific requirement that those seats have to remain unsold at any of the venue websites I checked out, but it may be that it’s a good business decision to keep them open and write off the loss as a cost of doing business. The ADA is a veritable fount of litigation as it is, and I’m reasonably sure that most venue owners want to avoid the negative publicity if it happened that a wheelchair seat was occupied by a non-disabled person, even though the seat was unsold as of the beginning of the event and remained unoccupied for some time after that.
Some venues even get uptight if you’re a ticket holder and you’re sitting in what is an obviously empty wheelchair seat. Last summer, Airman and I went to a minor-league baseball game, where we saw an usher ask someone to please go back to their seat because they couldn’t sit in the handicapped section. The patron had gotten up for some reason and didn’t want to crawl over the other people in his row to get to his seat, so he figured he’d wait in the wheelchair seats until a suitable break in the game. No dice, the usher said, you can’t sit here; you have to stand or go back to your seat.
Disabled areas in public venues are for the disabled, and often times, their caregivers. If the number of disabled individuals attending an event exceeds the capacity offered, the venue owner has to provide reasonable accommodation of equal or better value at no additional cost.
Conversely, if the venue is at over-capacity (e.g., SRO), and there are empty disabled areas, the overflow of non-disabled cannot occupy the disabled area. It’s the same as an overflowing parking lot and several disabled parking spots are empty. If you are not disabled and do not have a disabled parking permit, you cannot park there.
ADA was recently expanded, including strict definition of service animals. There are additional changes coming to ADA with respect to accessible design of physical facilities. Also, are are still public comment periods occurring to even more changes forthcoming. These include movie and video captioning in movie theaters, and possibly by inference, commercial DVDs. Lastly, there is a proposed change to address electronic accessibility across the board, such as accessibility for all commercial and private web sites in the US, and/or doing business in the US.
The ADA seems to be overly generous towards the allocation of resources for disabled people. They seem to overestimate the needed number of parking spots, seats, and other accommodations several times over. There are always many times too many disabled parking spots in large parking areas like shopping malls and stadiums even when the rest of the parking lot is filled above capacity in my experience. Having one available to those that need one is good but having several for each person does no one any good. The only way that a typical large parking lot in the U.S. would run short of handicapped spaces is if there were a convention for disabled people nearby and then they might run out. You shouldn’t really build to accommodate incredibly improbable situations for matters when true safety isn’t a primary issue.
I don’t consider myself to be disabled, but I have a bad back such that I am unable to stand in one place for more than about 15 minutes or sit on a bench without back support for more than an hour or so. Several years ago, before buying tickets for an outdoor Eagles concert I made sure that I would be sitting in a chair with a back support. What I didn’t foresee was that once the concert started everybody else in the audience would stand up and remain standing for the entire concert. I was really pissed because I then could not see the stage while I sat in my chair. When I contacted a security person and explained my situation I was told that my wife and I could move to the disabled area for the rest of the concert. I was glad there were some unsold disabled seats.
Shagnasty, I’m thinking this is a case of confirmation bias. Because of my daughter’s autism, we qualify for disabled parking when she is with us. It’s a godsend of an accomodation. Let me assure you, there are still lots of times when we have to forego doing something because the handicapped parking is full.
I was at a corporate thing with the LA Dodgers a year ago, and spent an evening with their corporate guy in the owners box. He complained about the ADA seating because it used up seats they could sell. But explained they did often comp VIP’s a the last minute with the spots.
I haven’t looked into ADA seating for a sporting event. Mainly because even with the ADA accomodation my daughter probably couldn’t handle a full game and probably wouldn’t care about the experience. Frankly, I’d much prefer my daughter to not be ADA qualified and happily give up handicapped parking (when it’s available).
FWIW, I’ve been to parking lots where every handicapped parking spot was taken, then went back to the same lot at a different time and every spot was empty. Builders have to plan for every eventuality, which includes the fact that different parts of parking lots will be full at different times.
The ADA requirement for parking spaces is capped at two percent of the total available for larger lots. The 2000 Census found approximately 20 percent of the US population self-identifies as being disabled, although there is no breakdown as to how many of those 20 percent could claim a reasonable accommodation for their disability and potential for a disabled parking spot.
This is not true. Despite having more handicapped parking than many retailers, my wife and I frequently found that all the handicapped parking at Wal-Mart was taken. At many other locations we frequently could find no open spaces as well, but Wal-Mart stands out.
I once bought Mets tickets about a week in advance and ended up in the wheelchair section. This could be because Citifield has more wheelchair seating than is legally required, but according to a document regarding accessible stadiums on ada.gov
I don’t go to Wal-Mart very often, but I find it to be the case at a number of places in my town, too. My mother can’t drive, anymore, so I’m her driver. I have a mirror tag for use when she’s in my car. We wound up buying a pair of 2-way radios so when the spots are full, I can drop her off at the door, park elsewhere, and she can call me when she’s done so I can drive back and pick her up.
Disabled parking spaces may be a different animal given this piece in the LA Times.
Not sure that many people are necessarily faking being in a wheelchair to get a hold of sports tickets (although I probably know a couple people who would try it), but parking spaces are easier.
They’re definitely a different animal - depending on where you live , handicapped placards may allow you to park in handicapped parking spaces in lots or on the street or they may allow you to park contrary to generally applicable parking rules (not required to pay at meter, or time limits or street cleaning regulations may not apply).
Wheelchair seats at stadiums are neither better seats nor less expensive than the other seats in the same area.
One of the things is what I call ‘‘retail’’. It is really that averages don’t work for small groups. I am not sure how many handicap spots my Wal*Mart has, but I think it is less than the 30 where statistics really start to work. Thus, even if those without tags are excluded, there will be times where many spaces will be empty and other times when all the spaces are full unless there are more than what should ever be needed.
With 20% of the population identifying as disabled, a 100,000 seat stadium would need 20,000 seats for disabled, a little more than my 30 for statistics to work. Of course, many of the disabled have no need for special seating, other than maybe room for their dog.
All of us pay for accommodations for the disabled. Of course they pay more themselves. Many of us forgo a full sized van, but if you need a wheelchair lift and room inside, plus hand controls, you pay. So excess seting, unused parking spaces, ramps, etc. all come out of everybody’s pocket. Fair? One day I was driving down the street and my progress was impeded by a man in a motorized wheel chair. I was at first annoyed. With further though, I decided I should be happy I have a truck and am able to drive it. Besides, I have worked at walking my dog in that area, and some places there isn’t a sidewalk. It was winter and even the sidewalks that are there aren’t shoveled. If you are going to talk about fair, why should anybody be disabled? I once worked a job where I always had to run upstairs after stuff. I decided to be happy I was much better able to run upstairs than the rest.
Twice we have been given a handicap room in a hotel. The one time the toilet ran over flooding the room. Perhaps the handicap room was the only one available and the management risked putting us in it. The second time, we had to play the service dog card. We needed a room in Warren, PA and none of the places would allow 70 pound Tux in as a pet. No he wasn’t a working service dog, but belonged to an assistance dog school that would train him after he was a year old. He had a tag that most public places accepted to allow him in. I suspect they used it as an excuse to get a few bucks out of a room that otherwise might be empty. It was interesting. It was next to the back door on the ground floor. Convenient for taking the dog out as needed, or a least for those that could manage the 8’’ high step. The room had eyebolts over the bed and an extra wide door to the bath. We spent a week visiting Pennsylvania taking Tux everywhere. The worse incident was the lady that tripped over him in a crowed bar. She severely injured her dignity and several of us ended up wearing her drink. Everybody laughed it off. They were feeling no pain.
You need to be accurate. The 2000 Census uncovered that 20 percent self-identify as being disabled. That does not mean all 20 percent are actually disabled so as to be reasonably accommodated under the law.
Try reading my post. Note I said identifying as disabled. I also mentioned many don’t need special seating. If you are going to nitpick, nitpick what was actually said.
THIS. I am disabled and there are many times, I would say 30% of the time, that there is no available handicapped parking. As you said, this seems to be particularly true at places like Wal-Mart, Target or supermarkets.
Even though I am disabled (I have to use a cane and long walks are very hard on me) I often will not park in a handicapped spot if there is only one or two left. I prefer to leave it open for someone who is a bit worse off than myself.
It is hard to imagine however a place like my local Wally World offering more handicapped parking. There are at least 30 or 40 available in the parking lot.
That is very considerate of you. I think usually there are empty spaces at my Wal*Mart. it could be the demographics of the area. Some areas may have more older people that are disabled.
One thing is that a shopping trip to Wal-Mart usually takes less time than a baseball or football game (I said usually), and at a retail store people are coming and going at different times and there is turnover in the parking spaces. At an arena, when you come for a ball game, your vehicle is there for the duration. People who design parking lots are using a different set of demographics for each venue, and they know how many spaces they will need (above and beyond those that are required by law). I think Wal-Mart might have more than they are required to have.