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Accessibility postings

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"ADA is in the building code along with structural requirements."

That would be incorrect, Sir. There are accessibility requirements in the code and a referenced ANSI Standard, but the ADA is the domain of the DOJ not the local Code Official.
 
Darren Emery said:
Brent, Are you saying that the only reason the ADA exists is due to misleading information, designed to pull at heart strings?
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Yes. Not codes of accessibility but the Ada.

Brent
 
MASSDRIVER said:
Yes. Not codes of accessibility but the Ada. Brent
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You obviously don't know that most lawsuits are not filed based on the ADA but on noncompliance with the CBC
 
The facts are (as I remember them) the owner was sent a demand letter by an ADA attorney for $6,000 which he refused to pay, the attorney then threatened to file a complaint with code enforcement and did. The city then inspected the restaurant and came up with a list of mandates. The property owner is currently trying to sell the vacant property. If they sue the courts now require every lawsuit go to voluntary arbitration, this usually results in a compromise but either side can reject the award and request a court trial, I've read that the litigants in ADA cases lose over 90% of the time, the disability attorneys have now found it more profitable to turn them in to the building department if they don't pay their demands.

SamWo said:
Important Announcement It has come to our attention that the building owner of 813 Washington St (San Francisco) have been using Sam Wo's name to sell the property. We want to state clearly that as of Monday, July 29, 2013, Sam Wo is no longer associated with the building at 813 Washington Street in San Francisco. There is no lease agreement between Sam Wo and the building owner of 813 Washington St. There also been no authorization or permission for the building owner to use our name. Currently, we are in search of a new location for a new home to restart Sam Wo. --Julie ¹
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One might say that the rolling blackmailers and their attorneys are doing the city a service identifying the buildings that don't meet current codes, then 99+% of the city will have to be rebuilt. Being obnoxious activists and blackmailing people does not win friends and influence people.

¹ http://www.samwo-restaurant.com/
 
conarb said:
The facts are (as I remember them) the owner was sent a demand letter by an ADA attorney for $6,000 which he refused to pay, the attorney then threatened to file a complaint with code enforcement and did. The city then inspected the restaurant and came up with a list of mandates. The property owner is currently trying to sell the vacant property. If they sue the courts now require every lawsuit go to voluntary arbitration, this usually results in a compromise but either side can reject the award and request a court trial, I've read that the litigants in ADA cases lose over 90% of the time, the disability attorneys have now found it more profitable to turn them in to the building department if they don't pay their demands. One might say that the rolling blackmailers and their attorneys are doing the city a service identifying the buildings that don't meet current codes, then 99+% of the city will have to be rebuilt. Being obnoxious activists and blackmailing people does not win friends and influence people.

¹ http://www.samwo-restaurant.com/
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Nothing in the posts you cited says Sam Wo closed becouse of accessibility.

It is your spin.
 
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mark handler said:
You obviously don't know that most lawsuits are not filed based on the ADA but on noncompliance with the CBC
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I swear you have the reading comprehension of a brick. Apologies to bricks.

And what is your fascination with Fox News? Why do you get all your information from there?

Brent
 
more insults! great. see if you can get back on track..............

I have personally eaten at several of these chinese restaurants located in chinatown. It is not unusual to have the non code complying (and I dont mean accessibility codes) stairway as the only access to an assembly use (dining area) on the second floor with the kitchen located on the ground floor and immediately adjacent to the exit stair without any protection. so...............if someone turns in a business for (obvious) accessibility issues and the code compliance officer comes out and sees a fire hazard of a kitchen that you essentially are exiting thru as a part of the escape route from a space that has a single exit when it requires two and they refuse to make improvements to a building that they do not own and choose to relocate then I guess its the disabled peoples fault? Sounds to me like we are benefiting from improved fire life safety.:devil
 
JPohling said:
.....I guess its the disabled peoples fault? Sounds to me like we are benefiting from improved fire life safety.
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You chose to patronize those places knowing full well that they were not code compliant, they are part of our culture and heritage, you could have patronized an antiseptic modern facility without the charm. The fact is that places like Sam Wo have existed for many years while nobody complained, the only time these concerns would have surfaced is when and if a permit to remodel was issued. It took one blackmailer in a wheelchair to initiate the chain of events that took Sam Wo's out of San Francisco's culture. In effect the disabled person was saying "If I can't go in there nobody else is going to go in there, or you can give me $6,000 and I'll let you continue to go in there."
 
Hell if someone has owned a business for a long time and has not done anything to improve the accessibility of the place shame on them for not trying to improve it at all.
 
David Henderson said:
Hell if someone has owned a business for a long time and has not done anything to improve the accessibility of the place shame on them for not trying to improve it at all.
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David:

I moved into a "lift slab" building at 1494 Solano Avenue in your fair city in 1957 when it was new, I moved there because I was working in Albany on U.C. Berkeley's married students housing putting asbestos siding on the buildings to the university's specifications. There were several lift slab apartment complexes build in Berkeley (one about 6 stories high), I moved there because it was a very modern building. They poured a stack of slabs on the ground and a crane lifted them up as workers ran in and put steel columns between each slab as it was raised, they stopped when one collapsed in Berkeley squashing a few workers. Look at the seismic code violations there, and can you imagine walls of single pane glass, all heated by electric baseboard resistance heating.

1) Should you go condemn the building for being out of code?

2) Should you condemn the building if someone pulled a permit to remodel a kitchen?

3) Should you condemn the building because the elevator isn't accessible?

4) What would you do if a disabled person rolled into your department complaining that the elevator wasn't accessible?

Let's face it, they've had 57 years to bring that building up to code.
 
The restaurants that I have experienced in Chinatown have way more code issues that accessibility. That is the reason they have been shut down. Including Sam Wo. wait till they target the produce stands!
 
MASSDRIVER said:
You must finally be getting tired of Marks insulting other members intelligence. Brent
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Actually when it comes to this topic I completely concur with his observations.
 
JPohling said:
Actually when it comes to this topic I completely concur with his observations.
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Of course you do. He has one good contribution at post # 71

Good, strait forward retort. And I think in this case he is right. Ada is just one consideration of a large construction problem. IF, if you are going to attack these institutions, then you have to go by the book. As this is an old alleyway, you can make a case for total demolition and no rebuild if it can't accommodate modern code.

I say "if" because personally I believe if I want to eat in an old rundown Chinese resteraunt I don't thing it's any bodies business to tell me I can't.

But if your going to apply this metric of compliance you may have to damn near tear down San Francisco from Columbus street east.

As an aside, a little humor goes a long way. There's a old saying "don't dish it out if you can't take it."

Brent
 
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