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How a disabilities act complaint nearly drove Orange Beach restaurateur out of business | al.com
How a disabilities act complaint nearly drove Orange Beach restaurateur out of business
ORANGE BEACH, Alabama – Hurricane Ivan knocked Chris Ybarra’s restaurant out of business for six months in 2004, and he watched helplessly as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill robbed him of customers in 2010.
But that was nothing compared to the battle he faced with the federal government over a lack of handicap accessibility of Cotton’s on Perdido Beach Boulevard.
“I don’t think any of that stacks up to what I went through with this,” he said Thursday.
Ybarra said he had no idea that a Mississippi man with a walker had been unable to negotiate the steps of the restaurant in 2010 until he received a letter in July of last year from the U.S. Department of Justice accusing him of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The resulting civil dispute ended this week when a judge approved a negotiated settlement that Ybarra said cost him more than $1 million and nearly drove him out of business. When he opened the restaurant in 1985, there was no such thing as the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Because his building predates the 1990 law, Ybarra said he believed it was exempt from its provisions.
“I was always under the understanding that we were grandfathered in,” he said.
It is a common misunderstanding, said his attorney, Craig Olmstead. “Everybody thinks that,” he said. “That’s why people get in trouble.”
Olmstead said the law contains a “safe harbor” provision protecting business owners from having to make changes that would not be feasible. But he said the exception is extremely narrow.
Ybarra said attorneys’ fees may have ended up costing as much even if he had been successful.
“I could have argued it, but it’s a lose-lose,” he said.
Ybarra, 53, said he does not wish to come across as angry or upset. He said he wanted to increase awareness about the law. He said he has warned fellow business owners and that some already have begun making modifications to their establishments.
Proactive steps could prevent a federal lawsuit for “pennies on the dollar,” he said.
When then-President George H.W. Bush signed the federal law, he declared that it would take a “sledgehammer to another wall, one which has for too many generations separated Americans with disabilities from the freedom they could glimpse, but not grasp.”
It bans discrimination against the disabled in employment and requires business owners to make accommodations for people with disabilities.
More than 30,000 lawsuits under the act have been filed across the country since 2000, according to federal court records. The Justice Department, however, takes up only a tiny fraction of those cases.
"We were about to have to close down because we were in a gridlock." -- Cotton's Restaurant owner Christ Ybarra
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the government filed 650 lawsuits from fiscal year 2000 through fiscal year 2012.
Fifty-seven cases remain pending in Alabama’s federal courts.
The case against Cotton’s involved Roland Barbier Sr., an elderly man Mississippi’s Walthall County who died earlier this year. Barbier was on vacation in 2010 when he and his family tried to have dinner at Cotton’s.
With no ramp or elevator, the government alleged, Barbier was unable to enter and the family went to another restaurant.
Under a settlement filed in federal court, Ybarra agreed to install a chairlift connected by a small ramp. He also built three handicap parking spaces and remodeled the bathrooms to provide a handicap-accessible facility.
The agreement contains requirements ensuring the ability of blind customers to bring guide dogs to the restaurant and for Ybarra to post signs– including messages in Braile – welcoming people with disabilities. He must also pay for employees to receive training.
Ybarra said many of the provisions in the settlement agreement never have been an issue. He said he never has prohibited guide dogs, for instance. He said he was disappointed to be labeled as someone who discriminates against the disabled.
“My mother is a stroke victim. My father is a stroke victim,” he said.
Feds reject side entrance
Ybarra, who grew up in Foley, said his first experience in the restaurant business was a part-time job at a seafood joint on the beach as a teenager. He said he worked 4½ years at Pizza Hut with Eddie Spence, who now owns a chain of Shrimp Basket restaurants, and eventually ventured out on his own.
The site of Cotton’s is a house dating to 1952. Ybarra said he enclosed a deck on the second floor for the dining room.
During all his years in business, he said, he has never gotten a complaint from someone who could not enter and has never turned anyone away. From time to time, he said, restaurant employees have helped customers up and down the steps.
“It is something we have been sympathetic to for a lot of years,” he said.
Ybarra said the settlement was neither easy nor cheap. The settlement agreement pegs the cost of the renovations at $240,000, with an additional $76,000 in lost sales when the restaurant was closed for two months.
Court records indicate that Ybarra paid $750,000 last year to buy the property – a move that was necessary, he added, because the landlord did not have the ability to help pay the renovation costs.
“We were about to have to close down because we were in a gridlock,” he said.
Throw in legal fees, Ybarra said, total cost ran seven figures.
The attorney, Olstead, said it is admirable that his client worked hard to find a way to keep the business open and save the jobs of his employees. “We had a great number of discussions about closing this business,” he said.
Sitting stop a hill in one of the highest points of Orange Beach, the restaurant location offers great advantages for withstanding hurricanes. Ybarra said he does not even carry flood insurance.
But the design proved difficult for ramps. Ybarra said building a ramp would have required wrapping it completely around the building, which would have eliminated about a third of his parking spaces. He estimated that he could have put a separate handicap entrance with a chairlift on the side of the building for about 5 percent of the cost.
But the Justice Department rejected the idea because it would have discriminated against disabled customers by sending them to a separate entrance. Ybarra said federal officials suggested moving the entrance for all customers to the other side of the building. But Ybarra said that would have taken 30 percent to 40 percent of his seating.
Ybarra said his daughter, who has a degree from Spring Hill College in actuarial mathematics, helped determine that he would be better off putting the chairlift in the front of the building. Although costlier, it allowed for additional tables, which could help him earn more money over time to pay for the costs.
To achieve it, Ybarra said, he had to shut down his business in February and March. He said the workers tore out the front of the building and re-graded the slope of the hill.
“It’s a law with good goals,” Olmstead said. “But like a lot of laws, the implementation can be brutal for some folks.”
How a disabilities act complaint nearly drove Orange Beach restaurateur out of business
ORANGE BEACH, Alabama – Hurricane Ivan knocked Chris Ybarra’s restaurant out of business for six months in 2004, and he watched helplessly as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill robbed him of customers in 2010.
But that was nothing compared to the battle he faced with the federal government over a lack of handicap accessibility of Cotton’s on Perdido Beach Boulevard.
“I don’t think any of that stacks up to what I went through with this,” he said Thursday.
Ybarra said he had no idea that a Mississippi man with a walker had been unable to negotiate the steps of the restaurant in 2010 until he received a letter in July of last year from the U.S. Department of Justice accusing him of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The resulting civil dispute ended this week when a judge approved a negotiated settlement that Ybarra said cost him more than $1 million and nearly drove him out of business. When he opened the restaurant in 1985, there was no such thing as the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Because his building predates the 1990 law, Ybarra said he believed it was exempt from its provisions.
“I was always under the understanding that we were grandfathered in,” he said.
It is a common misunderstanding, said his attorney, Craig Olmstead. “Everybody thinks that,” he said. “That’s why people get in trouble.”
Olmstead said the law contains a “safe harbor” provision protecting business owners from having to make changes that would not be feasible. But he said the exception is extremely narrow.
Ybarra said attorneys’ fees may have ended up costing as much even if he had been successful.
“I could have argued it, but it’s a lose-lose,” he said.
Ybarra, 53, said he does not wish to come across as angry or upset. He said he wanted to increase awareness about the law. He said he has warned fellow business owners and that some already have begun making modifications to their establishments.
Proactive steps could prevent a federal lawsuit for “pennies on the dollar,” he said.
When then-President George H.W. Bush signed the federal law, he declared that it would take a “sledgehammer to another wall, one which has for too many generations separated Americans with disabilities from the freedom they could glimpse, but not grasp.”
It bans discrimination against the disabled in employment and requires business owners to make accommodations for people with disabilities.
More than 30,000 lawsuits under the act have been filed across the country since 2000, according to federal court records. The Justice Department, however, takes up only a tiny fraction of those cases.
"We were about to have to close down because we were in a gridlock." -- Cotton's Restaurant owner Christ Ybarra
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the government filed 650 lawsuits from fiscal year 2000 through fiscal year 2012.
Fifty-seven cases remain pending in Alabama’s federal courts.
The case against Cotton’s involved Roland Barbier Sr., an elderly man Mississippi’s Walthall County who died earlier this year. Barbier was on vacation in 2010 when he and his family tried to have dinner at Cotton’s.
With no ramp or elevator, the government alleged, Barbier was unable to enter and the family went to another restaurant.
Under a settlement filed in federal court, Ybarra agreed to install a chairlift connected by a small ramp. He also built three handicap parking spaces and remodeled the bathrooms to provide a handicap-accessible facility.
The agreement contains requirements ensuring the ability of blind customers to bring guide dogs to the restaurant and for Ybarra to post signs– including messages in Braile – welcoming people with disabilities. He must also pay for employees to receive training.
Ybarra said many of the provisions in the settlement agreement never have been an issue. He said he never has prohibited guide dogs, for instance. He said he was disappointed to be labeled as someone who discriminates against the disabled.
“My mother is a stroke victim. My father is a stroke victim,” he said.
Feds reject side entrance
Ybarra, who grew up in Foley, said his first experience in the restaurant business was a part-time job at a seafood joint on the beach as a teenager. He said he worked 4½ years at Pizza Hut with Eddie Spence, who now owns a chain of Shrimp Basket restaurants, and eventually ventured out on his own.
The site of Cotton’s is a house dating to 1952. Ybarra said he enclosed a deck on the second floor for the dining room.
During all his years in business, he said, he has never gotten a complaint from someone who could not enter and has never turned anyone away. From time to time, he said, restaurant employees have helped customers up and down the steps.
“It is something we have been sympathetic to for a lot of years,” he said.
Ybarra said the settlement was neither easy nor cheap. The settlement agreement pegs the cost of the renovations at $240,000, with an additional $76,000 in lost sales when the restaurant was closed for two months.
Court records indicate that Ybarra paid $750,000 last year to buy the property – a move that was necessary, he added, because the landlord did not have the ability to help pay the renovation costs.
“We were about to have to close down because we were in a gridlock,” he said.
Throw in legal fees, Ybarra said, total cost ran seven figures.
The attorney, Olstead, said it is admirable that his client worked hard to find a way to keep the business open and save the jobs of his employees. “We had a great number of discussions about closing this business,” he said.
Sitting stop a hill in one of the highest points of Orange Beach, the restaurant location offers great advantages for withstanding hurricanes. Ybarra said he does not even carry flood insurance.
But the design proved difficult for ramps. Ybarra said building a ramp would have required wrapping it completely around the building, which would have eliminated about a third of his parking spaces. He estimated that he could have put a separate handicap entrance with a chairlift on the side of the building for about 5 percent of the cost.
But the Justice Department rejected the idea because it would have discriminated against disabled customers by sending them to a separate entrance. Ybarra said federal officials suggested moving the entrance for all customers to the other side of the building. But Ybarra said that would have taken 30 percent to 40 percent of his seating.
Ybarra said his daughter, who has a degree from Spring Hill College in actuarial mathematics, helped determine that he would be better off putting the chairlift in the front of the building. Although costlier, it allowed for additional tables, which could help him earn more money over time to pay for the costs.
To achieve it, Ybarra said, he had to shut down his business in February and March. He said the workers tore out the front of the building and re-graded the slope of the hill.
“It’s a law with good goals,” Olmstead said. “But like a lot of laws, the implementation can be brutal for some folks.”
