News & Updates

Kevin McGuire, CEO of McGuire Associates, Inc. has recently been a guest of the following broadcast media. He has given extensive interviews on the issues concerning emergency evacuation of people with disabilities.

RADIO:
88.3 AM WLIU (New York, NY)
97.1 FM Talk (Los Angeles, CA)
WHYY NPR/Morning Edition (Philadelphia, PA)

TELEVISION:
WABC-TV New York City Channel 7 (ABC affiliate)
WMC-TV Memphis Channel 5 (ABC affiliate)
WNBC-TV Memphis Channel 8 (NBC affiliate).

Sports Business Journal

July 16, 2007

Seats for Sale

By Bill King

The eBay listing made the two seats in Main Reserve 2, Row 1, behind home plate at Yankee Stadium sound as if they were designed for pleasure, rather than purpose.

“This row is an ADA accessible row. It is an extra roomy, wider row with lots more leg room. … Perfect for everyone, disabled or not. Great for kids.”

The pair sold for $197, plus $5.97 for shipping, which, considering the usual advanced price of $66 each, would have marked a tidy profit for the seller, an eBayer registered as “rocknrollnsports.”

The fact that they were ADA accessible — spaces designed for wheelchair users — made them even more profitable, since the Yankees sell those for $19 each as part of a settlement with disabled fans who sued them nine years ago.

Quite a score for “rocknrollnsports.” And quite despicable in the eyes of those who have worked to make sporting events more accessible since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

The ADA requires stadiums and arenas to provide spaces for when they’re wheelchairs. New facilities must be built with 1 percent of their seating dedicated to those in wheelchairs, and a matching number of seats reserved for their companions.

But the same civil rights protection that guarantees fans in wheelchairs access also prevents facility operators from asking them to prove they need access. You can’t ask whether a customer is disabled. Not when they’re purchasing the tickets. Not when they’re entering the stadium or arena. Not when they’re watching the game.

That makes buying, flipping and using wheelchair seats as easy as it is profitable.

“It’s killing stadiums,” said Amy Robertson, a Denver attorney who recently negotiated a $13 million ADA settlement with Kmart. “And it’s killing people with disabilities who can’t get tickets.”

Ask attorneys who represent the disabled. Ask activists who champion their rights. Ask ticketing executives with teams and facilities. Ask the consultants who counsel them on what is best and what is lawful. Almost unanimously, they will tell you that the aspect of the ADA that occupies most of their attention today is ticket fraud — the unabashed purchase of wheelchair seats by those who don’t need them, most often for profit, but sometimes because they afford lots of room and a dandy view.

All of them bemoan the practice.

And concede they can do little to stop it.

“Able-bodied people know that ADA seats exist, and they know you have to sell them to them,” said Larry Perkins, assistant general manager of the RBC Center, home to the Carolina Hurricanes and N.C. State. “It’s hard to really keep those tickets out of the hands of those folks.”

Like many venue operators, Perkins speaks of watching able-bodied fans line up for tickets under large signs that read: Accessible Seating. Some tell stories of watching scalpers buy the seats, stroll out into the parking lot, and sell them.

“The law has the best intentions, but it does get abused,” said Erik Judson, who oversaw the development of ADA-friendly Petco Park for the Padres and now is a principal with Padres owner John Moores’ recently launched development firm, JMI Sports. “We do everything we can to mitigate that. Unfortunately, if you have an opportunity, people are going to try to seize upon that opportunity, for better or for worse.”

Most teams only sell wheelchair tickets in person and over the phone, a practice that also likely violates the ADA, since others can buy tickets on the Web. Teams hope that asking buyers a series of questions will chase off scammers. Their Web sites include harshly worded warnings promising that any person using a wheelchair spot who is not disabled will be tossed letters from the event, or at the very least relocated. They use phrases like “under penalty of perjury” and words such as “fraud.”

But what can they do to make good on those threats?

 “Unfortunately, nothing,” said Kevin McGuire, a Boston-based attorney who consults on ADA issues for teams, facilities and promoters. McGuire, who writes the ADA ticket policies for his clients, likened it to the scare language that warns fans that they accept the risk of injury from a foul ball when they enter a ballpark. “But it is a shot across the bow,” he said.

Robertson said that walking buyers through a series of questions — such as the common “what accommodation do you require?” — should deter some of them, particularly since they must answer them directly, rather than with a mouse or keypad.  

“Maybe people blush a little bit,” said Robertson, who settled ADA cases against the Pepsi Center and Coors Field. “But the determined fraudster is not going to care.”  Even teams that sell out every game rarely sell as many as half of their allotted wheelchair spaces, say teams and consultants. Brokers know that, even after a sellout, they can get those seats.

“The fraud issue is one that we’re concerned about,” said John Wodatch, chief of the Department of Justice’s civil rights division, which enforces the ADA. “It’s a hard nut to crack.”

Many teams and concert promoters hold wheelchair spots for 24 to 72 hours after all other seats are gone. That’s a common policy meant to give disabled patrons a fair chance at the seats before they’re offered to the broader market.

“But what it’s also done is allow these StubHub schmucks to have that 72 hours to know those seats are open and grab them,” McGuire said. “They’re going to get them every time. They know you can’t ask them about a disability. They know the rules better than the people with disabilities, and they abuse it to the extreme.

“Next thing you know all these people are buying wheelchair tickets for an event in a state they don’t live in. And then they’re on eBay. And it’s LOL. Laugh out loud.”

The Yankees declined requests for interviews for this story. Many other teams also declined to discuss the matter, citing fears that shining a light on it will only attract more profiteers.

No team in sports deals with as difficult a dynamic as the Yankees on this front. Not only are their tickets in high demand, but their policies for releasing them to other buyers were set as the result of the settlement of disabled access complaints in 1999. They only release wheelchair tickets on a rigid schedule laid out in that agreement.

Beginning at 4 p.m., five days before a game, they may make available one third of the wheelchair seats that they haven’t sold. Two days before the game, they can offer one-third of what remains at that point. The day before the game, they can offer one half of what’s left. Ninety minutes before a game — or two hours on weekends or holidays — they can offer what’s still not sold in six sections. They must hold what’s left in six other sections up until first pitch. The settlement says a wave of tickets can be released beginning at 4 p.m. each day.

Brokers can watch the clock and pounce.

The settlement also attached many of those seats to the ballpark’s two lowest price points — now $12 and $19. Even the highest priced seats come at a discount of 23 percent. Plus, the Yankees are one of few teams that allows buyers to purchase accessible seating online. That means a quick, easy, impersonal transaction.

You couldn’t craft a more hospitable environment for a savvy scalper.

In May, an eBay user who bought wheelchair tickets to two Yankees games posted a plea for advice on the site’s message boards after he read on the team’s Web site that the tickets were meant only for disabled fans. He wrote that he contacted the seller, who told him that the Yankees did not enforce the policy. He said the seller refunded his money after he outed him to the Yankees.

The eBay user did not respond to e-mails requesting an interview. The seller — the aforementioned “rocknrollnsports,” who at the time had completed more than 600 eBay transactions — no longer is registered under that name.

The problem isn’t unique to the Yankees, or to baseball. Three weeks ago, an eBay seller listed wheelchair tickets for two Patriots games, against the Steelers and the Eagles. Again, the attraction was wide berth. The listing trumpeted them as “great seats for us big-boned Pats … fans.”

Informed of the sale, Patriots executives said they were unable to match the tickets with their owner, but would keep a closer eye on that section this season.

“We tell our fans that these are designed for wheelchair users and that we will be monitoring, and that’s all we can do,” said Dan Murphy, vice president of business development and external affairs for Gillette Stadium. “The people who sit in those sections generally are the ones who police it pretty well. If they don’t think you belong there, you’re going to hear about it.”

So why hasn’t the Justice Department, which enforces the ADA, taken aim on so obvious a problem? Consider it from the side of the seller. And take the scalpers out of the equation.

Kim Blackseth, an ADA consultant who is a paraplegic, has season tickets for Golden State Warriors games. His seats — a wheelchair space and companion — are courtside. Like many people who have season tickets in baseball, basketball or hockey, he goes to many games and gives away, or sells, the ones he doesn’t use.

When the Warriors made the playoffs this season, Blackseth couldn’t make all the games. So he sold them. “They were great seats,” Blackseth said, “and I got a premium for them.”

He did not sell them to a wheelchair user. Blackseth argues that limiting him in that manner would be as discriminatory as refusing to accommodate his wheelchair.

“I’m not suggesting there is no fraud,” Blackseth said. “But don’t leap to the conclusion that there’s something funny going on just because you see able-bodied people sitting in those seats.”

 

 

Sports Business Journal

July 9, 2007

Equal Access

By Bill King

The Americans with Disabilities Act has been law for 17 years, but is it working in sports? In the first of a two-part series, SportsBusiness Journal examines why the law still remains a work in progress.

He went barreling down the incline from street level to Fenway Park’s main concourse, sticking out his right arm to hook a concrete post and turn 90 degrees. From there, Kevin McGuire began the climb up a steep hill that led to his destination: an elevator to the club level, and a wheelchair space overlooking third base.

McGuire, 46 and still fit from years of basketball and tennis, navigated the rugged terrain with aplomb. He has been without the use of his legs since age 7, when a drunk driver veered into a neighbor’s front yard, where McGuire was playing ball.

As a child, his parents pushed him to be independent, demanding that he be placed in mainstream classes. When he went off to Boston University, they insisted that he make the drive, belongings in tow, alone. He was elected student body president and went on to law school at Georgetown.

Since 1991, he has owned and operated a Boston-based consultancy that specializes in compliance with disability laws, working mostly on the side of teams, facilities and concert promoters.

A few steep slopes will not keep McGuire from getting anywhere, and certainly won’t keep him from a difficult to come by, birds-eye perch with Disabilities Act into law during a White at Fenway on this night, with Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants in town.

He will pop over a curb when others block his way. He will churn uphill, jaw clenched and arms pumping, stopping to chatand joke with strangers as they clear space for him in an elevator. He will get to his wheelchair space in time to spy Bonds stretching along the left field line before the game. And when those in the rows in front of him rise, first for the national anthem and then to cheer the return of World Series hero Dave Roberts, he will point out the unobstructed view.

“We’re lucky up here,” McGuire said, scanning the crowd. “Now that everybody is standing, a lot of people in wheelchair seats can’t see a thing.”

Signed into law on July 26, 1990, by the previous President Bush, the Americans with Disabilities Act was meant to guarantee people with disabilities equal opportunities for employment, transportation, government services, telecommunications, commercial facilities and public accommodations.

Inherent in the latter two is the right to enjoy a sporting event or concert as others do.

Fifteen years after the ADA went into effect, those who design, build and run the stadiums and arenas that house those events say they still are sorting out precisely what that means, wary that a mistake or misinterpretation might get them sued.

Some of the more tangible requirements are spelled out numerically, in feet, inches and percentages in a comprehensive document known as the ADAAG (ADA Accessibility Guidelines), which reads similarly to a building code.

A wheelchair space must be at least 33 inches wide and four to five feet deep, depending on whether you arrive at it from the side or rear, and it must include three more feet behind it to allow for movement. Service counters and cash registers must include a section that is no higher than 36 inches. Stadiums and arenas that opened after 1990 must offer wheelchair locations equal to 1 percent of their seating capacity: 650 for a 65,000-seat football stadium, with room for another 650 “companion seats” positioned next to them.

But other matters are left to interpretation.

The one-to-one ratio of companion seats to wheelchair spaces seems to be at odds with the purchasing habits of ticket buyers, who typically attend games in groups of three or four. Is it fair to break up a family of four because one member is in a wheelchair, when an able-bodied family of four can land tickets together? It would seem not. But the ADA never addresses the matter directly.

Teams and the consultants who help craft their ADA policies say that phrases like “reasonable accommodation,” “readily achievable” and “equally distributed” cry out for clearer definition.

The standards applied to buildings that were constructed before the ADA are even murkier. There is no grandfather clause within the ADA but older buildings are given significantly more latitude. While there are only a handful of those left in pro sports — Fenway, Wrigley Field and Madison Square Garden, for example — most college stadiums fit that designation. Every time a university upgrades its hallowed football stadium, it must reconsider where those renovations place it in light of ADA standards, and how much it will cost to fix any shortcomings.

Complicating matters further are split decisions that have been rendered in federal courts across the country. A court in Washington, D.C., ruled 10 years ago that wheelchair users are entitled to lines of sight over standing spectators, a standard that the U.S. Department of Justice, which enforces the ADA, has since endorsed. A year later, a federal court in Oregon disagreed. And, in October, a federal court in California ruled that California Speedway need not provide sight lines over standing spectators because the government still has not properly enacted the rule. That case is under appeal.

All of this frustrates many architects, who are used to dealing with the certainties of building codes. Ed Roether, the ADA specialist at architecture firm HOK Sport, points to building code changes that already have been enacted in response to a nightclub fire that killed 100 in Rhode Island in 2003.

“In ADA, we’re still struggling with what the hell it meant 15 or 16 years ago,” Roether said.

If the ADA dealt only with measurables, architects and operators would have fewer questions. But the ADA is not a building code, written to protect people from a fire or a collapse. It is civil rights law, meant to protect them from discrimination.

That’s a far more interpretive matter, particularly in stadiums and arenas, which spread thousands of people across large spaces at varied heights.

“We have spent a lot of our time dealing with sports stadium issues,” said John Wodatch, a civil rights attorney who oversees the Justice Department’s disability rights section, “because we’ve gotten a lot of complaints about them.”

An ADA complaint can be costly. The Justice Department can seek fines of up to $55,000 for a first violation and $110,000 for a second violation. Federal Disabled people, like many fans, enjoy attending disability law does not allow plaintiffs to sue for sporting events in small groups yet often face limits damages. They can only of just one companion seat in wheelchair sections demand repairs, plus attorneys fees. But seven set aside by stadiums and arenas. states, including California, allow for damages. In large facilities, a “repair” might constitute ripping out rows of seats or resurfacing concourses.

With the stakes so high, many teams and architects hire consultants such as McGuire to point out problems before they lead to lawsuits.

“You have the law itself, with pages and pages of guidelines and regulations, and yet you still have these hazy terms and you have to have court decisions to determine what they should mean,” McGuire said. “But this has been the law for a long time now. We’ve had court decisions. In most cases, people really should understand what they’re supposed to do.”

For their part, the Red Sox point to tens of millions they have spent to make most of the ballpark’s concourses and rest rooms wheelchair accessible. They have put in four elevators, added wheelchair spaces in the front row, and blown out three rows of seats at the top of the right-field grandstand to create clear lines of sight for 17 wheelchair spaces. Late last month, they were working on gaining city approval to install an elevator that would lead to seats atop the Green Monster.

Janet Marie Smith, the noted architect who has redesigned Fenway, estimates that about one-third of the approximately $100 million that John Henry’s ownership group has spent on renovations in the last five years has gone toward ADA compliance.

“We feel that ADA is not a burden or something to be pushed aside, but rather something to embrace,” Smith said. “It’s the right thing to do. It’s also the law.

“I realize that a building that is 95 years old still has a long way to go, but I hope the ownership gets credit for something that has been an annual effort to make Fenway better.”

Making Fenway’s concourses accessible has been particularly cumbersome. Three had to be torn out and redone. Smith said the concourse McGuire traveled, which stretches from home plate down the first base line, is the only one the Red Sox have not made accessible, in part because they haven’t done any other work in that area and in part because the slope and angles will make it even more difficult to fix than the rest.

That concourse also happened to be included on the shortest path between the only will-call window at which you can pick up wheelchair accessible tickets on game day, and the elevator up to McGuire’s seats that night.

McGuire said he was skeptical about the Sox spending anything close to $30 million on ADA compliance, based on what he’s seen. He pointed out that the wheelchair spaces atop the Green Monster had to be redesigned twice before they met ADA standards, and that new construction in right field also ran afoul when it opened and had to be fixed. He said he reported both to the Boston-based Disability Law Center, an advocacy group that last year honored the team for improving quality of life for the disabled.

“If they really cared they wouldn’t have screwed up on right field and they wouldn’t have screwed up on the monster seats,” McGuire said. “And people with disabilities wouldn’t have to go to . . . advocacy groups to get them to do it right.”

Three years ago, the government agency that crafts the aforementioned ADAAG — the guidelines that serve as an architect’s road map on ADA issues — wrote a sweeping revision that included mostly minor tweaks and clarifications with regard to stadiums and arenas.

With one exception.

Hearing for years from architects and operators who complained that wheelchair users were buying fewer than half of the spaces that the law mandated that they provide, the Access Board reduced the required number from 1 percent of capacity to 0.5 percent.

It may not sound like much. But for an NBA or NHL team that sells out most of its games in an arena that seats18,000, cutting the number of required wheelchair spaces by 90 can set off a mighty revenue multiplier. Because a wheelchair space is deeper than a standard row and wider than a standard seat, one row with eight wheelchair spaces can easily convert to 20 or 30 additional seats.

Stretch that out across 41 games and you’ve got about survey that said they hold 10,000 more tickets that a team can sell. At an average wheelchair locations open of $40 each, that’s $410,000 in unlocked revenue.

 “We got huge numbers of calls from the industry saying, ‘Can we use the new guidelines now? Can we use them now?’,” said Marsha Mazz, an accessibility specialist with until the Access Board. “We’ve had to fend off those calls, saying ‘No, no.’ At this point, I think they’re all out there, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

The “other shoe” would be adoption of the new ADAAG by the Justice Department, a process that has taken so long that many in the business are skeptical of whether it will ever happen. You see, while the ADAAG and the ADA are joined at the hip, the ADAAG, by itself, is not law. Its revisions won’t be enforceable until the Justice Department adopts them.

That hasn’t happened, leaving them in bureaucratic limbo.

“They’ve written a whole new document, which is a lot better, and it’s sitting there,” said Craig Stockwell, an associate principal and project manager at sports architect HKS, which designed the NFL stadiums now under construction for the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys. “We have to notify the owners that it’s out there. We’re bound to tell our clients about that. As soon as they look at it, they want to use it.”

To do so at this point, Mazz said, would be “foolhardy.”

It does appear that there soon will be movement, though. Wodatch said late last month that the revisions should move into their next stage by February, when they’ll be published along with an accompanying document laying out more specific rules on matters such as ticket policies.

The latter part of that will be of interest to many who call and e-mail his office, pleading for clarifications.

After at least 60 days of public comment, the rules go back to the Justice Department for revision, and then get sent on for an impact analysis. They would be implemented in 2009. The reduction of wheelchair space requirements may make it all the way through that bureaucratic pingpong process. Or it may not.

Disability rights advocates point out that the law already allows teams to sell wheelchair spaces to able-bodied fans as season tickets once the rest of the seats on a level have been sold, and to convert unsold spaces into temporary seating for individual games and concerts. They can’t see why the government should cut the requirement in half when teams already can sell unused spaces.

They also argue that wheelchair usage is increasing as people live longer and yet remain active. About 2.7 million of 32 million severly disabled Americans use wheelchairs. Children with disabilities grow up doing many of the same things as their classmates, so it’s likely they’ll do many of the same things as their neighbors as adults. Plus, sports venues have decades worth of perception to overcome.

One disabled fan who was at Fenway on the same night as McGuire, John Kelly, was visiting for the first time in 10 years. He hadn’t been back because on his last trip, he sat along the first base line and couldn’t see over the people in front of him.

“People with disabilities do not have a history of feeling like they can go to sporting events,” Wodatch said. “Because they were never welcome, these were never places to go. As people understand those opportunities are available to them, there will be an increase [in use].”

For all the work that architects have done to create spaces that offered clear views and integrate them throughout the seating bowls, most teams report that wheelchair users buy fewer than half of what the law requires they provide.

As a result, designers have made a priority of creating spaces that can flex between wheelchairs and rows of seats.

“When it comes down to it, there’s a revenue issue here,” said Chris Lamberth, director of business development for 360 Architecture, which designed American Airlines Arena in Dallas and Nationwide Arena in Columbus. “The facility operator needs to be able to adapt when they don’t need that wheelchair seat.”

The ADA allows for the practice. Teams and promoters are not expected to forgo revenue in order to provide an accommodation that no one will use. But the Justice Department has warned operators to tread carefully when filling in wheelchair spaces. It has heard complaints that once teams put “temporary” seating in atop wheelchair spaces, they tend not to take it out.

“Too many times, those wheelchair seats disappear forever,” said McGuire, the ADA consultant. “The wheelchair users have a right to that seat before someone else does, but they’ve got no idea that it’s even supposed to be there, and no one tells them. So how can they buy it?”

That was one of the complaints in a lawsuit that a group filed in November 2002, against Kroenke Sports, owners and operators of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche and their arena, the Pepsi Center.

The design of the building included aluminum platforms that were to be placed over seats, creating wheelchair spaces at the center of the lower bowl. But when several disabled people tried to buy those spaces for various events, they were told the spaces didn’t exist.

“As we began to talk to them, it became clear that there really were no platforms, or that they were up in somebody’s attic,” said Amy Robertson, the Denver attorney whose firm represented the group, and also recently negotiated a record $13 million ADA settlement with Kmart. “We asked that it be built OK. It wasn’t. But they were friendly and quick to fix it after they got sued.”

Unfortunately, Kroenke could not remedy the problem immediately, because the locations were sold as season tickets. The settlement requires that they be converted as people give them up. It also calls for occasional monitoring of the arena’s ticket sales practices.

“I think we’re better prepared now than we were prior to that to assist and serve the needs of the accessible needs patron,” said Paul Andrews, executive vice president of Kroenke Sports. “But I don’t think there was anyone to blame. I think if we’d actually gone to court who knows what the interpretation would have been. The law is written pretty ambiguously.”

Another point that isn’t clear deals with the way teams deal with unused wheelchair spaces.

“There is a real question as to, OK, at what point in time can you actually sell that wheelchair space to someone else,” said Roether, of HOK. “That’s really tough to get your arms around.”

While that’s not laid out in the ADA, Deval Patrick, now governor of Massachusetts, spelled out the federal government’s position on it in a letter he sent to the commissioners of baseball, the NFL, NBA and NHL in October 1996, when he was assistant attorney general in charge of civil rights.

“Before wheelchair locations can be replaced with other seating,” he wrote, “all other seats in the stadium must first be sold.”

Straightforward as that may sound, it does not address a more complicated question: What the policy should be when a team sells almost all its seats to season subscribers, as many NFL teams do.

The New England Patriots’ home, Gillette Stadium, opened in 2002 with a mix of concrete wheelchair areas that could be filled in with temporary seating, and aluminum platforms that can be removed to reveal three rows of seats. It is a model of flexibility.

Dan Murphy, vice president of business development and external affairs for the stadium, estimates that removing a platform that fits for better options for attending sporting events. 20 wheelchairs would reveal about 90 seats. Soon after the stadium opened, the team received state approval to remove some platforms and sell the seats under them as season tickets, so long as they held open at least 250 more wheelchair spots than they had sold, on average, the previous year. Able-bodied fans who buy those season seats agree to be relocated the following season if a wheelchair user requests them.

Last season, the team sold 208 wheelchair and companion spots as season tickets, spread across 81 accounts. It held open an additional 380 for single-game sales, and relocation of fans who bought or were given standard seats, but needed wheelchair spots. Murphy said they could have met those demands and removed more platforms, but chose not to. Instead, they’ve donated wheelchair spots to local advocacy groups.

“Although they’re temporary in nature, they’re permanent in our eyes at this point,” Murphy said. “I don’t want to sound corny here. But it’s really just doing the right thing.”

Neither the ADA, nor the guidelines, bridges the gap between what is right and what is required when it comes to release of wheelchair seats for games that are sold out.

“There are sometimes some immeasurables,” Mazz said. “We try as hard as we can to make all of this quantifiable and measurable. Some of the hard questions are in the immeasurable and unquantifiable area.”

A minimum distance between rows is measurable. More difficult is a policy that ensures that a fan in a wheelchair can buy two, three or four seats together at the same range of prices offered to other fans, when only one out of 100 seats — or even fewer in the case of older buildings — are fit for wheelchairs.

Four days before the Red Sox game against the Giants, which had been sold out for months, the team put a handful of additional seats on sale in two sections — $23 bleacher seats and $45 right-field box seats. The only wheelchair seat available with an adjacent companion seat was in the pavilion club, priced at $158 each.

After a second call to the box office and a measure of prodding, the Red Sox also offered up a wheelchair spot in the grandstands, but could only provide a companion seat one row down and three seats over.

While the guidelines clearly require that companion seats be shoulder-to-shoulder with wheelchair spaces, a Red Sox ticketing executive said they sometimes end up with a stand-alone wheelchair space in a row because they’ve accommodated someone who wanted to bring more than one companion.

“That happens a lot,” said Ron Bumgarner, vice president of ticketing for the Red Sox. “We’re always trying to say yes to every request we get.”

Red Sox fans are less likely than others to be bothered by a separation, Bumgarner said, because they know that demand at Fenway is so high, even for single seats. “In a nonaccessible seating category, if I can get Row 6 and Row 12, gosh, that’s almost a pair,” Bumgarner said. “But, having said that, we try to stick to a hard-line policy of one-to-one that keeps them together.”

Twenty-one of 34 stadiums and arenas that responded to a question about companion seating in a SportsBusiness Journal syrvery said their policy was to provide one companion seat per wheelchair user. Further interviews revealed that some of those are flexible when asked for more. But Wodatch said his office has found that many aren’t.

In this case, the wording of the ADA regulation, which requires one companion seat for each wheelchair spot, departs from the intent of a law meant to give disabled people the same options as others.

“They should be able to sit together,” Wodatch said. “I have disabled people in my office who don’t go [to a game] because a father can’t go with his two kids and watch them. He can’t sit with them both.”

Bumgarner said the Sox don’t often sell out of wheelchair tickets, and that their policy is to hold unsold wheelchair and companion seats open until 72 hours before game time, at which point they begin to release them in phases, holding back some for exchange all the way up until game time.

“It’s very difficult,” Mazz said. “All we know how to do on our end is to write a technical standard that tells you how to provide that sight line, how big the wheelchair space is, what an accessible route is, and all of that. And to tell you to associate one companion seat with it and line it up shoulder to shoulder.

“And we think all of that is a pretty big job.”

Sight lines have been the most contentious of any ADA issue touching stadiums and arenas.

The Justice Department says it began looking into the work of sports architecture firm Ellerbe Becket in August 1994 after receiving complaints that the Rose Garden, home to the Portland Trail Blazers, did not meet ADA standards because, among a litany of other things, its wheelchair locations did not provide sight lines over standing spectators.

Soon after, a similar complaint came from disabled patrons at the Fleet Center in Boston, another building that Ellerbe designed. When the investigators began checking the rest of Ellerbe’s work, they diagnosed similar problems in arenas it designed in Cleveland, Philadelphia and Buffalo. Disabled rights groups filed civil lawsuits involving Ellerbe-designed arenas in Washington, D.C., and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

In October 1996, the government went after the firm with a case it filed in federal court in Minneapolis, where Ellerbe is headquartered. In it, the Justice Department bundled all the arenas, charging Ellerbe Becket with engaging in “a pattern or practice of illegal discrimination.”

Ellerbe eventually settled the overarching case by agreeing to design with standing spectators in mind in the future. The Rose Garden and MCI Center cases each yielded decisions that went largely against the architect and building operators. From those have come many of the clarifications that underpin what today is considered accessible design.

“I’ll go to my grave knowing that what we were doing in our buildings was without precedent in terms of the extent of accommodation,” said Bill Crockett, national director of sports for Ellerbe Becket, who joined the firm  in 1990, the same year Congress passed the ADA. “They were without peer. We really thought we were giving our clients options … not representing ourselves as experts in the ADA, because it was untested, but as experts in arena design trying to come up with ways to approach it.

 “We do think that now we’re experts, with the benefit of 10 years of learning and exploration.”

The Justice Department points to the Olympic Stadium Ellerbe designed for use in 1996 in Atlanta (now Turner Field) as a model of accessibility

To be fair, many besides Ellerbe went into the ADA era thinking that the old way of looking at sight lines was basketball games fine. McGuire argued as much on behalf of the Fleet Center when he consulted on the project during its construction.

Then he went to an event there.

 “All you saw was the Levi patch of the person standing in front of you,” McGuire said. “Once the building opened up,I realized there was a problem. I understand that. I get it. I was wrong.”

While most agree that the courts have resolved the issue of blocked views, architects say some complex seating issues remain. The ADAAG requires that wheelchairs be distributed at various angles around the seating bowl and at various prices. Those are easily understood. But it also requires that they be distributed from bottom to top.

“What is the correct number of rows?” asked Stockwell, the HKS architect. “I wish somebody [at the Justice Department] could tell me, because it’s going to kick back to me when it goes to the courts.”

Roether, the ADA expert at HOK, said vertical distribution is among the more daunting aspects of accessible design, in part because doing more of it can put wheelchairs in places that put them at risk in an emergency, such as a fire.

But attorneys say that argument hasn’t always prevailed.

Years ago, the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority would not sell wheelchair spots on the floor for boxing, wrestling or concerts held at its arena, saying it could not safely get wheelchairs out of the building if there were a fire.

Jim Weisman, a noted ADA attorney who won a landmark case against the transit authority in New York, challenged them on it, and other issues. When they argued the case in front of a judge, Weisman facetiously asked whether they should move the hearing from the fifth-floor courtroom, where those in wheelchairs might be in danger.

“This is the risk assumed by people with a disability every day,” Weisman said. “You have to show the probability of harm, not possibility of harm, in order to make that kind of discrimination lawful.”

The fact that the discussion has moved from whether wheelchairs could be segregated into ghettos behind the basket, a hockey goal, a baseball corner or a football end zone, as they were for decades, into the finer points debated by architects today speaks to a noteworthy evolution.

“We’re all trying to do the right thing,” Lamberth said. “Nobody is trying to get around or get by it.”

When San Diego Padres owner John Moores took a visitor on a tour of Petco Park as it was set to open three years ago, he pointed out an elevator that architects had to install next to a few steps that led to the home bullpen, because the ADA requires an accessible path of travel to all team areas.

“I hope we don’t sign anybody who needs that,” Moores joked.

They haven’t. But the ADA requires that the disabled be able to move freely throughout a venue, including onto the field and into dugouts. All locker rooms and clubhouses also must be accessible, with showers designed to accommodate disabilities. The Padres knew when they asked HOK for a small dugout next to the bullpen that they’d have to add an elevator.

“There are many things in ADA law that are very clear,” said Erik Judson, who oversaw the development of Petco for the Padres and now is a principal with Moores’ recently launched sports development firm, JMI Sports. “And that is one that is very clear. It was a no-brainer.”

Because the ADA also guarantees equal access to employment, buildings must be designed so that almost everyone can get almost everywhere, including locker rooms and dugouts. While a wheelchair or other mobility limitation would preclude someone from playing in the NBA, it wouldn’t necessarily keep them from working in a front office, on a medical staff, or as a newspaper reporter or an electrician or at any number of jobs that might take them beyond the seating bowl.

“It used to be there was the public, and then there were people who can’t walk,” Weisman said. “Now, the public includes people who can’t walk, or who have low vision, or who are hearing impaired. Designers of stadiums are getting it. They have a much more inclusive view of who the audience is.”

From behind the haze of a complex law that is taking decades to sort out, every so often someone says something that clarifies and cleanses.

Mazz, the accessibility specialist with the government operators struggle with board that writes the guidelines, boils the contradictions out of the debate by focusing on the law’s intent.

 “It’s all about equity,” Mazz said. “It’s about giving folks with disabilities essentially the same wonderful — or lousy— opportunities that you give everybody else.”

When considering colleges as a high school student in a small town north of West Point, McGuire chose Boston stadium no longer a 100­University. It had a reputation as an accessible place. Even there, McGuire found hurdles.

When he visited friends in an older dorm, McGuire entered through the back door and rode a freight elevator that carried fruits and vegetables to the cafeteria. He dreaded go beyond what you might the days when he would arrive after the onions.

“Still, that was access to me, and that was OK,” McGuire said. “Pre-ADA, you didn’t have very high expectations. But it’s different now. These kids growing up now are going to have a whole different set of expectations. All wheelchairs and mobility you have to do is go to their schools and see them being treated like all the other kids to realize that, when they grow up, they’re not going to be like I was.

“They’re not going to ride the freight elevator any more.”

Source: SportsBusiness Journal research

 

DAILY LABOR REPORT

June 8, 2006

Ensure Meeting Special Needs of Disabled In Emergency Prep Plans, Employers Say

In making emergency evacuation plans, employers must take particular notice of the needs of their disabled workers--some of whom may have undisclosed or temporary disabilities--according to participants in a June 7 roundtable discussion sponsored by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The panel members, who included representatives of large and small employers, a disability consulting firm, and the Department of Homeland Security, concurred that a comprehensive evacuation plan must address the needs of disabled employees.

EEOC Commissioner Christine Griffin, who moderated the discussion, and David Sutherland, civil rights officer for the Department of Homeland Security, both said the issue has received increasing attention since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and, more recently, Hurricane Katrina.

Sutherland, who heads an interagency coordinating council addressing emergency preparedness for the disabled, said there has been "tremendous movement and interest" on the concerns in both the public and private sectors since last October.

The council, established under a July 2004 Executive Order, has a Web site providing practical information on how people with and without disabilities can prepare for an emergency and including information for emergency planners and first responders to help them to better prepare for serving people with disabilities (http://www.disabilitypreparedness.gov <http://www.emergencypreparedness.gov> ).

Differing Needs Call for Specific Plans, Manager Says

The accommodation needs of the disabled are "complex and very different," observed Patty O'Sullivan, the global disability manager for Agilent Technologies in California. In order to develop a comprehensive emergency evacuation plan, an employer must be aware of those needs and establish "disability-specific procedures," she said.

O'Sullivan added that involvement of the disabled employees at both the development and implementation stage of any plan is particularly important, as is input from human resources, security, and local government. "It's critically important that everyone has an emergency preparedness role," she said.

"Proactive companies need to continuously reach out" to their disabled employees, said Kevin McGuire, a disability accessibility consultant, and every employee needs the "basic skills" to be able to assist a disabled co-worker, in the case of an emergency. The issue of emergency evacuation should be a mandatory subject during employee orientation, he maintained.

Dr. K. Andrew Crighton, the chief medical officer of Prudential Financial, said that his company develops an individual plan for the evacuation of every disabled employee, which includes two volunteers to assist in their evacuation. The plans are stored in several places, including at the facility's front desk, he said.

In addressing the safe evacuation needs of their disabled employees, employers need to be concerned about hidden and temporary disabilities, Crighton added. Employees "may be hesitant to come forward," he said, citing the example of an employee with asthma, working on an upper level floor, who faced difficulty in making a lengthy descent by stairs.

Prudential also holds mandatory evacuation drills each year. "We can never be too complacent," Crighton said.

EEOC addressed the same topic during an October 2005 meeting (206 DLR A-1, 10/26/05 <http://pubs.bna.com/ip/bna/dlr.nsf/5f64d1a440715be485256b57005ac7d2/6215a3b431ca42ca852570a6000896bd?OpenDocument> ) and also has issued a fact sheet with employer guidance on obtaining and using employee medical information during emergency evacuation plans (available on EEOC's Web site at http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/evacuation.html).

The agency scheduled the roundtable discussion as part of a "continuing dialogue" and to encourage more participation from private employers, said Chair Cari Dominguez.End of article graphic <http://portal.mxlogic.com/images/transparent.gif>

 

March 13, 2005

CEO's PART OF THE SOLUTION

He is the man with the answers to accessibility issues - yet McGuire spent more than 15 minutes watching two men tinker with the portable microphone before he could begin his speech on accommodating the disabled.

In a wheelchair since the age of 7 after being hit by a drunken driver, McGuire couldn't reach the lectern microphone, which was designed to be used by someone standing. "People don't think the different scenarios all the way through," he said.

Though a simple matter of technical difficulties and not insensitivity, Monday's incident at Mount Saint Mary College typified what McGuire has sought to bring about for almost 15 years: better accommodations for the disabled in a world geared for those who are able-bodied.

After the Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted by Congress in 1990, McGuire, now 44, founded McGuire Associates Inc., a consulting firm that aims to help public and private institutions abide by the law.

One of the nation's leading consultants on the ADA, he has worked on such big-name construction jobs and events as the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, the Boston Symphony Hall and last year's Democratic National Convention.

Local clients have included the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, the Newburgh School District and the Town of New Windsor.

In addition, the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, prompted him to develop a Disabled Evacuation Plan after hearing stories about disabled people stuck in the towers, unable to get out.

The Newburgh native has offices in his hometown and in Waltham, Mass., but spends much of his time traveling and says he has racked up 2 million frequent-flier miles.

He encourages companies to plan ahead in order to meet the needs of people who will use a building. "Proactive solutions, not reactive responses," is his company's motto.

"It's very helpful to have an expert on hand," said Mark Primoff, director of communications at Bard College, "so you don't find yourself in the situation of having to retrofit."

Often times it's more than just the law; it's good business.

"They are employed, they are disabled and they have dollars to spend," McGuire said. "And retailers are beginning to recognize that."

"We spent a lot of money on our facility, and we wanted it to be the best in the industry," said Brad Mayne, president and CEO of Center Operating Co., which built and manages the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Mayne hired McGuire as a consultant in addition to organizing an 11-member accessibility advisory committee. "We wanted to make sure we were accessible to anyone," he said.

Doug Hovey, executive director of Independent Living Inc., a disability advocacy group in Newburgh, said it makes a profound statement when stadiums, arenas and theaters are accessible to everyone.

"All of these things define the human experience and help us to define our quality of life," Hovey said.

"It's more than just the law," McGuire said. "Ninety percent of the ADA is sensitivity." Kevin McGuire, founder, chairman and CEO of McGuire Associates Inc., knows a thing or two about starting a successful business. What's the most important thing in starting a business? "It is really about the goal. My goal when I first started was to make the calls, send the letters. I really hustled. My advice to everyone when they're getting into a business is set those goals; daily goals, not just weekly goals. When you set a goal you have to work hard to reach it." How did you go about starting the business? "You have to look at the capital. How much money do you have and how can you stretch it? And then the next step is creating an entity and making you look bigger than you are. It's not a matter of how many people work for you, it's how you present yourself. No one knew when I first started that I was working out of an office building my dad owned, so it is important to create an image. My target was always the Fortune 500 companies, so my papers always look like something a Fortune 500 company would want to read." How do you find a niche market? "It's one thing to find a niche, it's another to be qualified. You have to know the niche once you get into it. You have to go for something that you're good at. I know I'm good at access issues." McGuire's speech Monday was one in a series of entrepreneurial lectures hosted by the business department at Mount Saint Mary College. The next speech in the series will be given by Dr. Lynda Klau, a clinical psychologist and executive coach, and is scheduled for Monday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. in Aquinas Hall, room 234.

 

Great Escape

Developing an evacuation plan for people with disabilities

March/April 2005

by Kevin G. McGuire

When I was seven years old, I was hit by a drunk driver, which left me paralyzed from the waist down, forcing me to use a wheelchair. In addition to the normal challenges in life, I've had to worry about such things as inaccessible buildings and restrooms, lack of curb cuts, and inoperable elevators.

I'm not alone. Roughly 20 percent of the U.S. population is disabled, including those who have mobility impairments, who are deaf or hard of hearing, who are blind or partially sighted, people of size, the elderly, those who have cognitive or emotional impairments, and those who are vertically challenged.

In 1990, President George Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), requiring that all newly constructed buildings be accessible to people with disabilities. The law also requires that buildings constructed before the ADA was enacted remove barriers when readily achievable.

Over time, the private sector and the federal government have addressed many of these features, barriers, and obstacles. Such codes as NFPA 101®, Life Safety Code®; NFPA 5000®, Building Construction and Safety Code®; the International Building Code; and ICC/ANSI A117.1, American National Standard for Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities, have made the spirit and intent of the ADA legislation a reality.

Just as important as making the stock of new buildings accessible, however, is the need to address the safety of the buildings' occupants, regardless of disability, during an emergency. Although building owners, managers, and tenants now understand that people with disabilities must be allowed into their facilities, these same people often fail to grasp that, legally, they must modify existing evacuation plans to ensure that people with disabilities can safely get out.

We have all heard stories about people being trapped in buildings during fires, earthquakes, and blackouts. During such emergencies, people with disabilities, particularly those with mobility impairments, are even more at risk.

In one case, a wheelchair user was on the 17th floor of a building when a fire broke out. She went as instructed to an area of rescue, a rather standard protocol, where she waited for more than 45 minutes without any communication. Smelling smoke and fearing for her life, the woman struggled out of her wheelchair onto the floor and crawled down hundreds of steps. When she finally reached safety, she was admonished by fire officials for not following "instructions."

While many people were able to walk to safety during the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, one wheelchair user perished while waiting to be rescued below the impact floors. The blackout in New York City in the summer of 2003 also highlighted how ill-prepared building owners are to evacuate people with disabilities.

The disabled community is filled with stories like these, stories of people let down by evacuation plans or, more often, faced with plans that make no provision for them.

And the stories are supported by data. In 2001, the National Organization on Disability released a Harris Poll survey of people who are employed full or part time. Among those surveyed, 55 percent said no plans had been made to evacuate people with disabilities safely from their workplace. And most of the plans of those employers who had them amounted to little more than telling people with disabilities to head to an area of rescue and wait. While this may be appropriate in some situations, waiting can increase the potential for tragedy in others.

It's the law At the federal level, many ADA concepts are codified in the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG), which state that "Because people with disabilities may visit, be employed, or be a resident in any building, emergency management plans with specific provisions to ensure their safe evacuation also play an essential role in fire safety and life safety." Similarly, the Title III Technical Assistance Manual notes that a facility "is obligated to modify its evacuation procedures, if necessary, to provide alternative means for clients with mobility impairments to be safely evacuatedwithout using the elevator. The [facility] should also modify its plan to take into account the needs of its clients with visual, hearing, and other disabilities." Non-compliance can result in expensive lawsuits by private individuals and the Department of Justice.

During a recent emergency evacuation at a Maryland mall, for example, a wheelchair user shopping in a store on an upper floor was led out of the store into the mall with the non-disabled shoppers and into an elevator. However, power to the elevators was shut off, trapping her inside a car alone. It took 45 minutes before anyone realized she was missing. Fortunately she survived. She sued both the mall owner and anchor store and scored a stunning victory in December when the judge in her case ruled that Title III of the ADA applies to the evacuation policies of all places of public accommodation.

Developing a disability evacuation plan Evacuation plans in general have always been an important operating feature of a building. A sampling of evacuation requirements can be found in Section 4.8.2 of NFPA 101, which states that an evacuation plan should include procedures for reporting emergencies, spell out occupant and staff response, include fire drills, and detail the type and coverage of a building's fire protection systems and other items required by the authority having jurisdiction. The Life Safety Code also states that an evacuation plan "shall be reviewed and updated as required by the authority having jurisdiction."

These plans must account for a range of events and be robust enough to take all types of occupants into consideration. They must be encompassing, amenable to change, and applicable to a range of occupants with disabilities.

When I work with clients to develop a disability evacuation plan (DEP), I advise them to include the following five steps:

* Learn your building. Do this by carefully studying its layout, taking particular note of all paths of travel, exits, and potential obstacles. * Know who in your building is disabled, employees and visitors alike. * Review your evacuation equipment and signage. If evacuation signage already exists, make sure it identifies any different paths that people with disabilities will have to travel. * Train your staff. You should continually train everyone in general evacuation procedures. * Coordinate with emergency response personnel. Review your DEP with police, fire, and office of emergency management officials.

 

Learn your building Learning a building is not as simple as identifying exits. You must also look at the floor plan and identify potential problem areas for people with disabilities. The preferred path of travel to an exit will differ based on the type of disability. For example, someone who is deaf or hard of hearing can follow the same path of travel to an exit as someone who is not disabled, while someone with a mobility impairment may not be able to. Wherever possible, identify secondary paths of travel to an exit, in case the primary travel path is blocked.

Local regulations will also come into play here. In certain locations and circumstances, elevators can be used for emergency evacuation. In others, however, they cannot. You should check with your local emergency response personnel to determine your local rules.

You should also designate areas of rescue, also known as areas of refuge, where people with disabilities can await rescue if they are unable to leave the building. And it's not enough to send people with disabilities to areas of rescue without a plan for letting rescue workers know their location. You must have a strategy for communicating with emergency response personnel, be it by two-way radio, built-in intercom system, or cell phone. In each area of rescue, you should post a sign with the name of the location so that people will know exactly where they are, even in the excitement of a crisis. Note that areas of rescue are not the same in all jurisdictions, so it's important to check your local regulations.

You will have to make some decisions about the use of stairways during an evacuation. If a stairway is wide enough, someone who is disabled can evacuate with someone who is not disabled by staying to one side. If not, you can either stop someone who is not disabled to allow a person with a disability to exit or wait until the traffic has thinned out. Once you have decided what works best for your building, be sure to remember to communicate it to your staff when training them.

Know your population with disabilities Knowing the population of people with disabilities in the building and where they may be located is critical for a successful DEP.

One way to get this information is to draft a memo to all employees asking about their needs during an evacuation. Place a copy of the memo in employee orientation packets so that, as your workforce changes, your DEP remains current. You should also approach employees with visible disabilities to discuss evacuation issues. As always, you should be respectful of a person's privacy rights in soliciting any information.

For individuals with cognitive or emotional disabilities, such as autism or Down Syndrome, emergency evacuation assistance involves keeping them calm by giving clear instructions during the evacuation. It's likely these individuals will be able to use the same routes as the non-disabled, but may do so at a somewhat slower pace.

And don't forget that some of the building occupants may be temporarily disabled- with a broken leg, for example. You should develop a policy requesting that employees inform a designated person of such a condition and make supervisors responsible for noting anyone with a visible temporary disability.

Visitors with disabilities, such as guests, clients, and customers, present a difficult challenge since you may not even know they are in the building. For tracking purposes, building or floor sign-in sheets can sometimes help.

Determine appropriate equipment Depending on the type of building and its obstacles, such as stairs, certain equipment and signage may be needed. For example, portable, lightweight evacuating chairs may be needed to help wheelchair users up and down stairs. Ramps can be helpful in negotiating one or two steps.

All primary function and public areas should have evacuation signs showing the means of egress and multiple paths of travel if the path to be taken by someone with a disability is different than the one used by the general public. Signs are for directional purposes and should state as simply as possible, "You are here, exit this way." Signs that convey too much information, are difficult to read, or are hard to find can confuse people and waste valuable time.

Train your staff A DEP is useless unless employees are trained to execute it, it is reviewed periodically, and, to the extent possible, it is practiced. Ongoing training is imperative, and new employees should receive training as part of their company orientation. By training your entire staff, you allow anyone to help a person with a disability in an unforeseen situation.

I advise my clients to assign non-disabled employees to help specific employees with a disability. You have to give a little thought to this process. The assistant should work near the person with a disability and be physically able to help him or her. Just about anyone can help a person who is partially sighted, but an elderly co-worker might not be a good match for a quadriplegic using a power wheelchair. Work schedules, breaks, vacation and sick days, and travel schedules must also be considered.

Employees should be trained to evacuate people with various types of disabilities. For instance, there are special techniques for assisting people who are blind, and these differ depending on whether the person uses a service animal or not. Similarly, the techniques for assisting wheelchair users depend on whether the wheelchair is a power wheelchair. Employees who have been assigned to assist a specific individual should concentrate on learning how to help that person.

Training is one area where you may need outside assistance. The proper techniques, while not difficult to learn, are not intuitive. In fact, as a wheelchair user, I can tell you that many well-meaning people have almost thrown me out of my wheelchair trying to help me down stairs. The mistake: They push my wheelchair forward and push me right down the stairs. Instead, I train people to tilt my wheelchair back and take each step slowly. Similarly, there are techniques to avoid in helping people who are partially sighted and people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

All employees should be familiar with paths of exit for people with disabilities. It's easy to forget that a particular path has a step and cannot be used by a power wheelchair user. You should also familiarize your employees with the locations of areas of rescue and specialized evacuation equipment.

The key to it all is practice. You should run frequent evacuation drills, including people with disabilities whenever possible, and all employees assigned to help someone with a disability should practice with that person. If you have bought special equipment, you should have all employees practice setting up the equipment; an emergency is not the time to be reading the owner's manual.

Finally, people with disabilities and those assisting them should be instructed to check in with a supervisor once they have safely evacuated.

Coordinate with local emergency personnel You need to discuss and review your DEP with fire, police, EMTs, and your office of emergency management. Meet with these officials annually, give them copies of your plan, and discuss local regulations and requirements. Walk them around your building so they are familiar with all areas of rescue, and discuss any concerns about your plan. For example, you will need to coordinate with them regarding the use of elevators during emergency evacuations.

After my accident, I worried about being able to play ball with the other kids. Now I worry about my safety whenever entering a multi-story building because I don't know how comprehensive the evacuation plan is or how well the staff has been trained. I have to be concerned every time I stay in a hotel and discover the evacuation route mounted on the back of the room door fails to tell me, a wheelchair user, what route to take during an evacuation. I think about whether or not I will be able to inform rescue workers of my location if I'm able to reach an area of rescue during an emergency.

There seems to be a wide public understanding that people with disabilities must be allowed into public venues. However, the law also provides for our safe evacuation when we need to get out of buildings during an emergency.

Fire and building officials and human resource managers should consider it their responsibility, as much as it is mine, to make sure building owners include people with all types of disabilities in their evacuation plans. That way, energy can be spent on training and awareness, rather than fighting the lawsuits that would inevitably come with non-compliance.

i Source: U.S. Census Bureau ii Source: ADA Technical Assistance Manual, III-4.2100 General., Illustration 1

Kevin G. McGuire is Chairman and CEO of McGuire Associates, Inc., an ADA consulting firm, and a member of the NFPA Building Code and the Building Systems technical committees. He is also a member of NFPA's Disability Access Review and Advisory Committee.

May 28, 2004

Democratic National Convention Planners Release Comprehensive Accessibility Guide for Delegates

Convention Officials Create Information Guide, Hire Accessibility Expert to Ensure Accessibility at July's Democratic National Convention

Boston, MA ­ Continuing its unconditional commitment to host the most accessible and integrated Convention in history, the 2004 Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) today released a comprehensive "Accessibility Guide" for delegates with disabilities. The guide contains detailed information concerning relevant services and products in the Greater Boston area to help ensure accessibility for delegates participating in this year's Convention.

The DNCC also announced today the hiring of an accomplished leader in the arena of accessibility for public and private facilities. The addition of Kevin G. McGuire to the existing DNCC team is the latest step in a comprehensive effort to guarantee the participation and accessibility of Democratic delegates with disabilities. "Accessibility for all people with disabilities at this year's Convention has been a top priority for the DNCC staff," said DNCC CEO Rod O'Connor. "Giving delegates our 'Accessibility Guide' and adding Kevin's expertise will support these efforts and help ensure that all delegates can fully participate at the 2004 Democratic National Convention."

The DNCC is taking numerous steps to make the Democratic National Convention accessible, including assembling a team of volunteers to provide support to individuals with disabilities in utilizing appropriate transportation services, accommodations, and access in and around the FleetCenter during Convention week. The volunteer team will manage a "Guest Services Desk" at the arena, which will provide assistive listening devices and printed materials in alternative formats, including Braille.

The DNCC will also provide a wide range of technologies at the arena, including ASL interpreters on stage during all Convention proceedings, which will also be captioned. Accessible phone service and computer service will be available at the FleetCenter and DNCC hotels.

McGuire has served as an accessibility consultant during design, construction, or renovation at numerous area arenas and public facilities, including the New England Patriots' Gillette Stadium, the Wang Center for the Performing Arts, the Shubert Theatre, Boston Symphony Hall, and FleetCenter. McGuire advised these facilities on a host of disability-related access issues, including wheelchair access and captioning policies for the deaf and hard of hearing. He also led sensitivity trainings of both management and frontline staff. McGuire will perform similar duties for the Convention.

 

The following article appeared in The New York Times on September 26, 2003

Theater Group Improves Access for Disabled

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

A group of companies that owns about half of the theaters on Broadway said yesterday that it had revamped 16 properties, all of them historical landmarks, to make them more accessible to theatergoers with disabilities.

The Shubert Organization, whose theaters include the Winter Garden and the Barrymore, has spent about $5 million to rebuild auditoriums, bathrooms and ticket counters in 16 theaters, said Gerald Schoenfeld, the group's board chairman.

The changes bring the theaters into compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, which requires that public buildings provide access for the handicapped, said Robert W. Sadowski, the assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. His office had recommended that theaters make the changes, which the owners eventually agreed to do.

"What we did was a combination of compulsion and volunteerism," Mr. Schoenfeld said at an opening ceremony near one of the newly upgraded theaters. "We were a willing complier."

Kevin McGuire, a consultant on the theater upgrades, has been in a wheelchair since 1968 when, as a child, he was struck by a drunken driver. Watching a Broadway show or a movie, he said, meant sitting in raked aisles while "people got their share of popcorn and soda on your shoulder."

To upgrade the theaters, builders unbolted some seats, making space for wheelchairs. The slope of the floors was adjusted with concrete. Slots were cut into the marble walls below ticket counters to enable people in wheelchairs to turn over credit cards and cash. Bathroom stalls were widened.

All 16 theaters are landmark buildings, with an average age of 80 years.

The age presented problems for the designers, who had to contend with narrow aisles and sloped floors. Regulations imposed by the Fire Department had to conform to historical landmark requirements.

The Americans With Disabilities Act went into effect in 1992. Under the rules, new buildings must make 1 percent of their seating available to people in wheelchairs, Mr. Sadowski said. For older buildings, however, the rules are less clear. They state that buildings should be made accessible where access is "readily achievable."

The group began working on the reconstruction in 1996 after the federal government recommended the changes.

The owners of some public structures have resisted making such changes. The federal government had to sue Yankee Stadium in 1999 before its owners finally agreed to comply, Mr. Sadowski said.

Even so, New York has come a long way since the 1970's, when, Mr. McGuire remembers, his father had to carry him over rows of seats to see a Knicks basketball game. Even a decade later, as a college student in Rhode Island, attending an Earth Wind and Fire concert with friends was a lonely experience.

"It was bizarre," he said. "I had to sit off by myself."

 

 

The following article appeared in The Star-Ledger, Newark, New Jersey on 3/31/03

Management's Responsibility

By Meg Nugent The Star-Ledger Staff Writer

Let's say you're an owner or manager of a building -- an office complex, museum or any other facility to which the public has access -- and you want to devise an evacuation plan for people with disabilities.

There are five major points you need to consider, according to Kevin McGuire, a wheelchair user whose company, McGuire Associates Inc., with offices in New York and Massachusetts, has devised a "Disability Evacuation Plan" that it markets to facilities ranging from the workplace to sports stadiums, arenas, cultural institutions, school districts and municipalities.

"You need to learn your building," said McGuire, whose company specializes in helping organizations comply with regulations established in the Americans with Disabilities Act. He said building owners and managers need to identify all emergency exits and stairwells, areas of the buildings where foot traffic is heavy, paths of travel to and from the building, and "areas of safety" within the building.

Next, get to know the kinds of disabilities that employees or residents have, as well as the disabilities of those who frequently visit the facility.

The range of disabilities extends beyond wheelchair users. People with disabilities also include those who are blind, visually challenged, deaf or have a hearing loss; those with mobility problems who need a cane, walker or crutches; people who are cognitively or emotionally impaired; the elderly, and people who are overweight or obese.

Once you know the kinds of disabilities you would be dealing with, you'll be able to determine the type of equipment, as well as what kind of signs and storage you should have in place. If wheelchair users frequent your building, for example, you may want to purchase chairs that are specially designed to transport them down stairways.

Be sure to train your staff -- and that means everyone on staff -- on how to assist a disabled person during an evacuation, McGuire said. Training everyone, instead of one or a few people, will better ensure a disabled person will get the help he or she needs in an emergency, he said.

McGuire also strongly suggested that a business coordinate its evacuation plan with local emergency response personnel to ensure that it is a well thought out and effective one.

 

The following article appeared in San Antonio Express-News 10/26/02

Tour Shines Spotlight on Arena's Accessibility

Group offers praise for features at SBC Center.

By Patrick Driscoll Express-News Staff Writer

Details such as low counters, convenient places to slide wheelchairs into and wide spaces in bathrooms and elevators add up to make the SBC Center a nice place to visit, say people who toured the arena Friday as part of All Access Night.

"Those are just little features that I'm catching onto that makes it very convenient for us," said Allen Flores, who said the experience might convince him to start going basketball games.

Flores, 44, who has difficulty walking and uses a wheelchair as a result of polio, served on a committee that advised officials on how to make the arena accessible to people with sensory, cognitive or physical disabilities.

Friday was the first time he saw the completed result.

"It's fantastic," he said. "My house is not even that accessible, to be honest with you."

About 45 people attended the event, which started with a one-hour tour. They later watched the Spurs play Philadelphia.

There are some minor things to fix such as some railing heights and loose seats, said Kevin McGuire, an accessibility consultant for the SBC project. But that's the case in any major undertaking and will be easy to take care of.

"Changes are going to be made," he told the group as the tour commenced. "If you see anything, please let us know."

McGuire, who said he has worked on about 70 sporting venues in the past decade, up to half the projects in the nation, said the SBC Center is the best when it comes to accessibility. Disabled people have nearly every price range and sight line available in the bowl, he said.

"We've probably set a new standard for the NBA," he said.

Adrian Cavallini, whose 11-year-old son, Anthony, uses a wheelchair, said the parking spot was a little tight but everything else is impressive.

"Everything in here seems to be very, very accessible," he said. "They've really made a great effort."

And that's not the only good thing, according to Anthony.

"The SBC Center is brighter than the Alamodome," he said.

 

Lack of Evacuation Plan Spurs Suit

Katie Savage filed a lawsuit against her local mall because of its lack of an evacuation plan for people with disabilities. On Sept. 3, 2002, while the nation was on alert for the possibility of another September terrorist attack, the fire alarm sounded at the City Place Mall in Silver Spring, MD., and everyone in the mall was told to evacuate.

"Everyone was running, panic everywhere, people screaming that there was a bomb, a terrorist in the mall," says Savage. "I kept thinking to myself, ‘How am I going to get out of here?'" The exit doors were locked, all elevators and escalators shut off. Along with a few others who can't use stairs, she watched shoppers fleeing up the steps until the evacuation was over. No one ever came to assist her.

Fortunately, there was no emergency -- the panic was caused by a patron of Gold's Gym who pulled the fire alarm.

Savage, 53, filed the lawsuit with help from the Disability Rights Council in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 26. "I just want these malls to comprehend the seriousness of what's happening in the world and sensitize their employees," says Savage.