Clutter can cost shops customers

Disabilities make getting around hard enough; holidays pose higher hurdles

The busier the holiday season, the more difficult shopping can become for people with disabilities.

The reason: Businesses hungry to sell their best holiday wares can create an unintended obstacle course for the disabled, potentially losing chunks of this lucrative market.

The crowds at this time of year add to the bumpy sidewalks, obstructed store aisles and difficult entrances that people with disabilities are likely to face, said Caroline Ambrose, 30, a Raleigh resident and peer advocate at the Alliance of Disability Advocates. She uses a wheelchair to get around.

"Aisles are smaller; things become more crowded," adds Vicki Smith, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy agency Disability Rights North Carolina. "It could become impossible for people with disabilities to move around."

From the retail perspective, people with disabilities represent a $175 billion national market to be captured, or lost, in what is projected to be a slow retail season.

"There's a huge market that people can tap," said Larry Jones, who heads the North Carolina office charged with helping businesses comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. "People with disabilities and their families spend money just like everybody else does. Cutting yourself off from that market just doesn't make sense."

Stores with accessibility problems are also hard on people using crutches, frail older people and even parents with children in strollers, Jones and others said.

Jones doesn't keep records of complaints that are resolved informally. But he attributes what he thinks are increases in complaints to the sheer numbers of shoppers and to changing attitudes.

"People with disabilities have become assertive about going more places and achieving a level of independence," he said.

Principal complaints to the ADA office include:

* Lack of access to parking spots.

* Insufficient curb cuts.

* Crowded aisles.

* Obstructed entrances.

Other problem areas can include rest rooms and dressing rooms.

With merchants likely competing for fewer consumer dollars, they can be tempted to pile items anywhere and everywhere, said Rene Cummins, executive director of the Alliance of Disability Advocates in Raleigh.

"With the way that I have been hearing that retail is going to extend the selling season this year, they are probably going to put as much merchandise out as possible -- that's probably going to be accentuated this year," Cummins said.

Building codes inspectors have to consider access guidelines when approving new construction, but even stores that pass inspections can present obstacles.

"A lot of businesses think they are accessible because they don't have a big step up, but they have a little one," Smith said. "Two inches is too high."

Enforcement of ADA provisions is, in the end, the province of the U.S. Justice Department. But obstacles are usually removed after a call from a consumer, advocate or government employee.

"I got a call from a consumer who said they were unable to get to the handicapped parking at a large retailer because there were Christmas trees in the way," Jones said. "I made a call to the regional office. The space was cleared, and the problem was resolved."

Stores such as Ten Thousand Villages in Cameron Village make a point of maintaining wide aisles; it has also had a wheelchair lift since 1995, the year it opened. Cameron Village replaced a cranky earlier model of the lift when the store renegotiated its lease, but the situation isn't ideal, said Sarah Pearson, executive director of the location.

"People do have to come to the top of the stairs and let us know they are there," Pearson said. "They have to wait for us to go get the key."

Smith, from Disability Rights North Carolina, said the delay could turn some people away at just one look.

"Some people wouldn't even bother to go," she said.

Jones and the advocates had all heard the same response from many businesses -- that they don't need to create good access because people with disabilities don't come in their stores.

"I love that, when they have the entrance that is a long, cascading set of stairs, and they say, 'People with wheelchairs have never complained about our store,' " Cummins said.

"I'll say, 'No kidding. Do you want to think that one through?' "