The ADA requires companies providing goods and services to the public to take certain limited steps to improve access to existing places of business. This mandate includes the obligation to remove barriers from existing buildings when it is readily achievable to do so. Readily achievable means easily accomplishable and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense.
Many building features that are common in older facilities such as narrow doors, a step or a round door knob at an entrance door, or a crowded check-out or store aisle are barriers to access by people with disabilities. Removing barriers by ramping a curb, widening an entrance door, installing visual alarms, or designating an accessible parking space is often essential to ensure equal opportunity for people with disabilities. Because removing these and other common barriers can be simple and inexpensive in some cases and difficult and costly in others, the regulations for the ADA provide a flexible approach to compliance. This practical approach requires that barriers be removed in existing facilities only when it is readily achievable to do so. The ADA does not require existing buildings to meet the ADA's standards for newly constructed facilities.
The ADA states that individuals with disabilities may not be denied the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations that the business provides -- in other words, whatever type of good or service a business provides to its customers or clients. A business or other private entity that serves the public must ensure equal opportunity for people with disabilities.
A place of public accommodation is a facility whose operations affect commerce and fall within at least one of the following 12 categories set out in the ADA:
- Places of lodging (e.g., inns, hotels, motels) (except for owner-occupied establishments renting fewer than six rooms);
- Establishments serving food or drink (e.g., restaurants and bars);
- Places of exhibition or entertainment (e.g., motion picture houses, theaters, concert halls, stadiums);
- Places of public gathering (e.g., auditoriums, convention centers, lecture halls);
- Sales or rental establishments (e.g., bakeries, grocery stores, hardware stores, shopping centers);
- Service establishments (e.g., Laundromats, dry-cleaners, banks, barber shops, beauty shops, travel services, shoe repair services, funeral parlors, gas stations, offices of accountants or lawyers, pharmacies, insurance offices, professional offices of health care providers, hospitals);
- Public transportation terminals, depots, or stations (not including facilities relating to air transportation);
- Places of public display or collection (e.g., museums, libraries, galleries);
- Places of recreation (e.g., parks, zoos, amusement parks);
- Places of education (e.g., nursery schools, elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or postgraduate private schools);
- Social service center establishments (e.g., day care centers, senior citizen centers, homeless shelters, food banks, adoption agencies); and
- Places of exercise or recreation (e.g., gymnasiums, health spas, bowling alleys, golf courses).
Building Code
The State of Washington and Clark County utilize the International Building Code and the American National Standard (ICC/ANSI A117.1.2003), to comply with accessible building design.
Tax Deduction
As amended in 1990, the Internal Revenue Code allows a deduction of up to $15,000 per year for expenses associated with the removal of qualified architectural and transportation barriers (Section 190).
Information Links
Americans with Disabilities Act
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm
ADA Checklist for Readily Achievable Barrier Removal
www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/checkweb.htm
ADATA - Readily Achievable Barrier Removal
www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adata1.htm
