I don’t understand what you just said, I’m afraid.
There are ways to address laws you disagree with, but a restaurant manager is not a person able to assist you in this. Your local representative may be more appropriate.
I don’t even know what the fire code is. You say you haven’t checked, so you don’t, either. Might I suggest that any progress in this conversation requires us to know the fire code in question?
Maybe they were making it up (in which case, they are, indeed, assholes). Maybe they weren’t (in which case they had no choice). We simply don’t know.
If you’re unwilling to look up the fire code, you could post your jurisdiction and maybe someone could look it up for you.
Bear in mind that if the firecode prohibited you from having your chair where you wanted it to be, it wouldn’t matter at all how many people were in the restaurant at that time.
I work in retail, so I’m aware there’s a specified number of inches aisles are supposed to be based on some code, could be ADA or fire code, dunno. I don’t remember off the top of my head what they are (I want to say 36 inches, but I could be wrong), but I can eyeball a passage to determine if its at least close.
If someone stuck something wheeled in the aisle, I’d have to move it. If it was someone’s wheelchair, however, I’d have to find other accommodations because I can’t exactly make the place inaccessible to a disabled person to keep it in regulation, now can I? I think it would have been better for the hostess to offer him more appropriate accommodations that would have allowed him to keep his chair and kept the restaurant in compliance with the code. They failed their customer. He didn’t fail them.
I didn’t get he was asking for a complete airline redesign, but more of a redesign of the chair that requires the flight attendant to buckle him all up and push him down the aisle. I gathered he’d be happier if the chair were self-propelled.
That is a possibility, I agree, but it seems to be pretty hard to get the specifics and it’s just an assumption. We can assume it was possible to do so and remain within fire code, but we don’t know either the fire code or the restaurant layout. Ultimately, only the OP and the restaurant staff know the details, and we’re all left guessing as to the specifics and, indeed, the exact nature of the conversation. He hasn’t specified whether they offered to move him (perhaps they did and he refused; perhaps for some reason it wasn’t possible; perhaps they thought about it but decided they didn’t like the way he addressed them; perhaps he was unfailingly polite and asked to be moved and they could have done so but didn’t - we honestly do not know).
WTF, dude? Several people who have “bombarded you” ARE those who either use wheel chairs themselves, or have someone close to them (spouses and/or children) that do.
I’m not saying the restaurant was in the right (I don’t see why they wouldn’t let you keep it there folded up), but that’s not an excuse to go around and act like a douche.
How, exactly, am I “acting like a douche”? I’m fairly confident that the people that I am referring to with the “bombardment” comment are not in wheelchairs. WTF
The ADA is federal law and presumably overrides any local fire code. Or does the ADA itself provide that any “reasonable accommodation” must nevertheless comply with local codes?
Why are you calling him names? What’s the purpose of labeling him a ‘douche’ because he insisted on keeping his, well, legs, near him? You’re being a bit insensitive, don’t you think?
As someone who is in a wheelchair, he’s probably discriminated against all the fucking time. Would you rather him be meek and timid?
Having been out with my father in his wheelchair, and my elderly grandfather with his walker and motorized shopping cart, most people have been as nice as pie. Red Lobster did take my grandfather’s walker, when we went there for dinner on a busy Friday night with him and brought it back the minute the meal was over and they did it with some tact.
I would think it would be more against the fire code to keep a wheelchair too far away, from a patron in case there’s a massive fuckup and evacuation is called fo.
You know something, I think a large segment of society would rather I be exactly that way. That mentality is pervasive amongst the disabled community. Because it gets drilled into your fucking head from society. It’s a sad process to see, and I see it all the time.
So the only options are aggressive and in your face or meek and timid. No middle ground?
Most people aren’t saying “just put up with whatever the restaurant people want you to do, don’t you dare complain!”, they’re saying “maybe there was a better way to address the issue and come to a mutually agreeable solution”. Being polite and agreeable while dealing with problems doesn’t necessarily equate to being meek and timid.
I’d just like to say that the attitude “It’s the law, we have to comply with it” is a very dangerous attitude to have that keeps society from progressing. Can you imagine if Rosa Parks had never refused to give up her seat because her behavior would have not been in compliance with the law?
I think the issue here is not what the fire code says, but whether the fire code is unfairly discriminating against disabled people. And if it is, whether simply writing a letter to your Congressman is going to make the difference.
The fact is, it’s very easy to appreciate a law that either helps you or it doesn’t affect you, and it can be very hard to recognize how unfair a law is until it has a negative impact on your own personal life. I get the impression that most of the people who posted in this thread cannot imagine themselves nonambulatory in case of an emergency. The closest I come to relating is when I had a boyfriend twice my size who would trap me inside a room when we were fighting. He was never physically threatening me, but the sensation that I was trapped and someone else had control over my actions was absolutely terrifying. In a case like that, I was not calmly reasoning with him, I was hysterically crying and begging and doing whatever I could to try to keep him from trapping me.
I don’t mean to discredit what the fire code said, but if it put forth stipulations that put one of the customers in harm’s way, I have a problem with that. Having said all that, I will contend that being confrontational is only a good course of action if you’ve already tried to be diplomatic and that hasn’t worked.
“Is there perhaps another table available where I could keep my wheelchair at hand and not have it in the aisle?”
Really, it’s just not that hard. Those things beneath your nose are lips, don’t be afraid to use them. Use your words people, and some manners.
Your story reminds me of the sage saying, ‘Someone who is nice to you, but a jerk to the waiter, is still a jerk!’ You pitched such a fit you embarrassed your date, that’s not cool, and it says a lot about you that I suspect you did not intend to reveal.
Being in a wheelchair is a harsh reality, I’m sure. But I doubt it’s as big a handicap as chronic bitterness and anger over an unequal world.
Bitterness and anger are like acid, they are the most corrosive to the container they are in. Yes, even righteous anger and bitterness.
a wheelchair left in an aisle way would likely be a fire code violation. so might a folded wheelchair that could get knocked on its side during a fire evacuation.
Well I would hope that rather than being left in an aisle or being knocked over, the wheelchair would be occupied by its owner and being wheeled out of the establishment alongside everyone else.
The argument that the fire code shouldn’t apply because the restaurant was empty is rather like saying that it is OK to park in a handicapped spot if there are other handicapped spots empty.
It doesn’t. The rationale is that, in cases of fire or other sudden emergency, several able-bodied people can get out in the time it would take to get one paraplegic. Therefore, unfortunately for the paraplegic, the needs of the many must give way to the needs of the few.
I’d rather he was reasonable about it. Instead, AFAICT (and in the opinion of his date) he was not reasonable.
I understand that it sucks to be in a wheelchair. It must be as frustrating as hell. No one denies that. But that does not mean that you should be doing what the OP appears to be doing, which is looking around for things to take offense at.
One of the problems with being stuck needing a chair on an airplane is they remove the courtesy chair they wheel you into the plane, leaving you stuck with nothing while flying.
On Iceland Air I got lucky, the seating they had right at the entrance to the plane is right at the midline toilet, more or less. I could pretty much lean to my left and open the door [or I could if my arms were about 6 inches longer…] so getting there from my seat was basically a case of standing up, grabbing the seat backs and leaning forward and supporting myself on the edge of the sink - but I don’t think the OP could manage that. Not sure how much control over his overall lower body is remaining.
Actually, the plane could support a person using their own wheel chair if they removed both of the seats [9 a/b]that is right at the door that do not have the bulkhead in front of them] and add the thingies for tiedowns. Still does not allow for toilet access though. I think you would also need a small movable ramp to get over the threshold at the door.
Have you read any of his other threads? We’re talking a HUGE excluded middle here between “meek and timid” and rude and combative. Which is how he’s behaving in almost every post he’s made.