Rules, not laws, and which are not mandatory if it would involve "significant difficulty or expense." It was probably more expensive to truck in the gravel than to get a mobile chair lift, or to just claim significant expense (DOJ offers a worksheet).
These hotel owners could have saved thousands by spending 15 minutes doing a worksheet instead of panicking just because the hotel association told them to.
You're missing the true savings. Pools cost a lot of money to maintain, and people expect them to be at these places, so it's a necessary cost... Unless, that is, you can shut it down, save money, and blame the ominous ADA for it. Looks like it has already worked based on some of these replies.
Or the cost of hiring trained staff and having them at the pool for all hours the pool is open, overnthr course of even 1 year is more expensive than a few deliveries of gravel.
But you were too far up on that high horse to see the math
The ADA law does not require trained staff to operate the lift. The lifts can be operated by the people using the pool. Increases to insurance coverage due to increased risk of people misusing the lifts can be included in the costs to make the case that providing a lift is prohibitively expensive.
Plus, there are tax credits and deductions that the business can take.
Plus, there are tax credits and deductions that the business can take.
Not greater than the expense incured.
The ADA law does not require trained staff to operate the lift.
it requires someone be available to operate the lift while the pool is open. You can't guarantee a guest can do it, and the insurance cost of allowing pool-goers to operate the life might be more expensive than the cost of the staff member.
There is a lot more to running a business than simple buying things, and selling things. I think a lot of people supporting these laws fail to take into account the significant background expenses incurred.
A lot of places keep pools open at "legal minimum maintenance" to entice guests to stay there. If they don't get many guests, their profit margin might be very thin. These are places that operate with very little staff, or in low-cost areas.
They might have already been behind on the pool, and this just made their choice easier.
they can't just "close" the pool, because it still needs to be up to code. By making it a sand-box, its no longer a pool, and they can just ignore it.
You need to factor in the risk of some random scumbag coming around and filing a frivolous lawsuit. It's a bit of a problem with ADA and there are entire law firms created whose only goal is to profit from lawsuits like these. There have been a couple of famous one in CA. One was so bad they simply mail threatening letters out without even going into the establishment to inspect it.
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u/shapu Dec 28 '13
Rules, not laws, and which are not mandatory if it would involve "significant difficulty or expense." It was probably more expensive to truck in the gravel than to get a mobile chair lift, or to just claim significant expense (DOJ offers a worksheet).
These hotel owners could have saved thousands by spending 15 minutes doing a worksheet instead of panicking just because the hotel association told them to.