Roger Winborne thought he was in luck recently when he found a winning $3 lottery ticket while walking his dog.
So he drove around Salem trying to find a convenience store where he could redeem the scratch-off ticket.
Winborne's luck ran out when he discovered that at least three stores in the area did not have a handicap-accessible parking space or access ramp.
Winborne, 51, and three other disabled Virginians filed a lawsuit yesterday against the Virginia Lottery for allowing such businesses to sell tickets.
"I kind of was surprised," said Winborne, a paraplegic who has used a wheelchair since the 1960s as a result of a spinal-cord injury. "You think of convenience stores as being convenient."
Winborne said he has seen many positive changes in accessibility for disabled Virginians. Now, he said, "I'm hoping to see the Lottery comply," he said.
The suit, filed in Richmond Circuit Court, also names businesses in Abingdon, Roanoke and Winchester that the plaintiffs claim are not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Virginians with Disabilities Act. In addition to the Lottery, Director Donna Van Cleave is named as a defendant. The plaintiffs are represented by the Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy, a watchdog group that helps state residents with disabilities.
The suit does not seek damages but does ask the Lottery to repay attorneys fees and court costs. It was filed on the 15th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Yesterday afternoon, Jill Vaughan, the Lottery's director of communications, said: "We've just received the suit, and we're in the process of reviewing it."
A retailer-contract form on the Virginia Lottery Web site says all vendors must comply with the American and state disabilities acts.
sue the store,not the lottery....
Or repeal the ADA and replace it with something that takes into account the country can't entirely bankrupt itself to accomplish the unaccomplishable, or tie itself up in lawsuits by the bitter, resentful victims of misfortune.
I once spent a lot of taxpayer money making a building compliant with the ADA. Happened to be a building that never once, over several years, was visited by a disabled person. That's happened all over this country, but still there are a few businesses out there who aren't able to comply for one reason or another. Sometimes it's simply the physical limitations of the structure.
Time we took a fresh look at how we're gnawing ourselves to death with guilt and reparation over things we had no part in.
Jack
everybody has to have their rights these days....
next midgets will be suing tall people....
the facts are simple: Its a federal regulation. The plaintiff has a valid point. Granted I agree that the issue is with the store and NOT the lottery itself. technically speaking the plaintiff could go after every product manufacturer in these stores . After all...the lottery is a product being purchased.
Other then that-I'd rather my tax money go towards improvements then towards bombs and warfare. One helps whilst the other destroys..go figure.
I agree with this.
It just sounds like another moron using the court system as a lottery and being an example of why more tort reform is needed.
Think it's funny that people in wheel chairs can't get into certain places. Try sitting in one for a few days, weeks if you will then years. And after having spent some time in one realizing that you now are handicapped as well because you didn't put the shoe on the other foot.
Suppose you went to a town that only served the handicapped and you couldn't get into any of the the places because you weren't handicapped.
Think it's funny that people in wheel chairs can't get into certain places. Try sitting in one for a few days, weeks if you will then years. And after having spent some time in one realizing that you now are handicapped as well because you didn't put the shoe on the other foot.
Suppose you went to a town that only served the handicapped and you couldn't get into any of the the places because you weren't handicapped.
four4me,
I agree with you in that it's always best to try walking in someone else's shoes instead of judging them. However, in this case I think this is a scam. If the guy was walking his dog, then he was probably near his home. If he is near his home, he already has convenience stores that he would regularly go to. If anything, he probably passed up about 100 stores that were handicap accessible before he was able to find one or two that were not.
Think it's funny that people in wheel chairs can't get into certain places. Try sitting in one for a few days, weeks if you will then years. And after having spent some time in one realizing that you now are handicapped as well because you didn't put the shoe on the other foot.
Suppose you went to a town that only served the handicapped and you couldn't get into any of the the places because you weren't handicapped.
four4me,
I agree with you in that it's always best to try walking in someone else's shoes instead of judging them. However, in this case I think this is a scam. If the guy was walking his dog, then he was probably near his home. If he is near his home, he already has convenience stores that he would regularly go to. If anything, he probably passed up about 100 stores that were handicap accessible before he was able to find one or two that were not.
thats the problem.people take life for granted until something bad happens to wake them up.half the people walking around depressed should just be glad they eat three meals a day and have two arms and two legs......
thats the problem.people take life for granted until something bad happens to wake them up.half the people walking around depressed should just be glad they eat three meals a day and have two arms and two legs......
A true fact, Lottomike.
Jack
Think it's funny that people in wheel chairs can't get into certain places. Try sitting in one for a few days, weeks if you will then years. And after having spent some time in one realizing that you now are handicapped as well because you didn't put the shoe on the other foot.
Suppose you went to a town that only served the handicapped and you couldn't get into any of the the places because you weren't handicapped.
four4me,
I agree with you in that it's always best to try walking in someone else's shoes instead of judging them. However, in this case I think this is a scam. If the guy was walking his dog, then he was probably near his home. If he is near his home, he already has convenience stores that he would regularly go to. If anything, he probably passed up about 100 stores that were handicap accessible before he was able to find one or two that were not.
I agree with you and sympathize with those folks who happen to be afflicted. I'm aware there are a lot of places they can't go. I'm also aware the law requires them to be able to go anywhere anyone else can, and places the burden of making it happen on a lot of people and businesses who had nothing to do with the problem.
The law is uncompromising. Even the US Forestry Service has gone to considerable trouble to make forest trails accessible and abandoned many in lieu of the possibility of being sued.
In a restaurant in Las Cruces a couple of years ago I watched a man in a wheelchair, one of these activists, come in, look over the ground floor accomodations, of which there were plenty, then ask how he was supposed to get upstairs (same as downstairs, but not accessible).... watched him make a scene, a big, loud one,...... the guy was obviously following a recipe book scenario.
I'm not saying there's not a lot of misfortune in life. There is. There are a lot of things that guy will never be able to do. It's life. We've chosen that particular ill to attempt to correct, among a forest of ills, and I suppose where tax dollars are concerned it's probably as good as any.
But to force some backwater diner business owners to undergo overwhelming expense converting their entrances and restrooms to be accessible in places where the physical limitations make it near impossible? Shutting down forest trails? Suing product manufacterers and lotteries because a handicapped person couldn't get access? Depriving a population within a 50 mile radius of a place to buy a meal, a loaf of bread, a tank of gas by forcing businesses who can't comply to shut down rather than be sued?
Absurd!
Life's hard. Putting ones self into the shoes of a person who's handicapped isn't going to make it less hard for either of them. Taking away from the everyone because some can't use it ain't going to help.
We've waved the bloody flag at trying to make it fair, though I suspect this particular law was created to ride in on guilt and keep a lot of shysters eating and drinking and buying fancy cars.
I don't much care whether those places where this one happened have to quit selling lottery tickets, but I think it's unfortunate.
I have to drive down the mountain into Bernalillo to buy tickets seven miles from here. When I asked the local guy who owns the little dirtwater convenience store/gas station why he doesn't carry PB tickets, he said, "Nothing but trouble trouble trouble!"
Now I understand part of the reason why.
Jack
Jack,
Very well put. In fact, I believe all legislation created based on the guilt of the person who created it is bad legislation.
My library (opened last year) is built for the handicapped.
It's my understanding that damages, pain and suffering, are Not Taxable which explains the core motivation of much "activism."
Also keeps lawyers fat and happy because it's easier to throw money than fight it through.
My library (opened last year) is built for the handicapped.
Any good reading material in there?
Jack
I go to the liberry to get on the internet.
Go to any where outside of the U.S. and the "handicap" are on their own. Wonder how they manage to exist on their own?
I have a "handicap" sticker, and I use the same thought I had when I was 20 - if I can't get in, then I go some where else.
Go to any where outside of the U.S. and the "handicap" are on their own. Wonder how they manage to exist on their own?
I have a "handicap" sticker, and I use the same thought I had when I was 20 - if I can't get in, then I go some where else.
I tips my hat to you. I've sometimes thought that approach would be the one I'd take if I'd been afflicted in that way. I think (hope) I'd figure if those people wanted my business they'd make their businesses accessible. A lot would, and those who didn't just wouldn't get the money I had to spend.
Best to you,
Jack
Go to any where outside of the U.S. and the "handicap" are on their own. Wonder how they manage to exist on their own?
I have a "handicap" sticker, and I use the same thought I had when I was 20 - if I can't get in, then I go some where else.
Chewie i have a pasport but have never been out of the country to know how much of your statement is correct or not. I'm not an activist but i have noted the many places within walking distance riding distance from my house that i couldn't get into because there was no way i could get in. I didn't panic and call the handi police i found another way also.
An example of non compliance is the last place i worked didn't have any handicapped assess abilities to or from or inside the building. In fact they didn't even have a handi parking place. They knew i was facing an operation where i might be forced to use a wheel chair for a while. Rather than build a simple ramp on one of the many exterior entrance doors they chose to find a way to terminate my employment. Now anybody else might have called the EEOC or an attorney and filed several laws suits. I didn't do that crazy maybe but i was just one case of this happening i know there are probably several thousand places that on a daily basis let people go because they don't want to comply with state, federal, rules and laws.
When are handicapped people just going to learn that they're not welcome anymore....
If God wanted them around he wouldn't have handicapped them, right?
When are handicapped people just going to learn that they're not welcome anymore....
If God wanted them around he wouldn't have handicapped them, right?
Nice bumper-sticker rhetoric. Precisely the sort of inflamatory, simplistic, guilt-driven, sarcastic thinking that leads us further into the morass. Bumper stickers try to pass themselves off as glib, clever, but they boil down to an excuse for people not thinking past the ends of their noses.
It's not many years since guys with their legs blown off defending this country in time of war were pushing themselves around the streets of every city of this nation, selling pencils, getting by any way they could. The ones who got their conditions in other ways didn't have any safety net, and they were selling pencils, too.
I believe this society did right by taking measures to help those people, which it did.
It's all a matter of degree.
But, I'd also mention in passing, that most of those people pushing themselves around on platforms with castors responded with anger when anyone tried to open doors for them. Tried to give them a dollar bill instead of a nickle for a pencil. They weren't beggars, weren't looking for sympathy, weren't looking for anyone to do anything special for them.
The concept of pride in personal responsibility, in a man goring his own oxen, wasn't yet an anathema.
Jack
When are handicapped people just going to learn that they're not welcome anymore....
If God wanted them around he wouldn't have handicapped them, right?
That's an ignorant statement. God help you if you become handicapped.
When are handicapped people just going to learn that they're not welcome anymore....
If God wanted them around he wouldn't have handicapped them, right?
what an ignorant statement. do you think they prefer being handicapped?
are you positive you'll never become handicapped.??
When are handicapped people just going to learn that they're not welcome anymore....
If God wanted them around he wouldn't have handicapped them, right?
what an ignorant statement. do you think they prefer being handicapped?
are you positive you'll never become handicapped.??
Evidently I read the post incorrectly. I saw it as sarcasm, whereas it was more transparent as pure ignorance by you and Todd.
Sorry.
Jack
When are handicapped people just going to learn that they're not welcome anymore....
If God wanted them around he wouldn't have handicapped them, right?
With a statement such as that, one can only assume you are either very young or have been blessed with a family that have never had handicap related issues.
Sad part is, I can probably recall a time my mentality was perhaps no more mature then what you are displaying with that comment. Believe me, until you spent time wheeling a family member around in a wheel chair, literally picking up a person who weighed more then twice myself from a wheel chair and putting them into the back seat of a SUV. And perhaps more so, wiping away the tears of a dear family member who cried each time because they could no longer do for themselves. This you do not for obligation of family, but for true sincerety of those you love. Maybe, just maybe, like myself, you will one day open your eyes to the world around you and realize that perhaps the person who is truly handicap...is none other then yourself.
Sir Metro
When are handicapped people just going to learn that they're not welcome anymore....
If God wanted them around he wouldn't have handicapped them, right?
Thousandair
In regards to the rules and regulations as they apply to ADA access, one tends to over look one huge and critical issue. Those business's whose structure existed prior to enactment of ADA regulations are exempt up to and until a modification to such structure is made. Therefore, those stores, if they are older then the ADA rules, they are, in fact compliant with ADA regulations. A little fact that is seldom acknowledged by anyone.
I do not claim to fully understand all the rules and regulations, however, as I understand it, a physical structure that is not being altered by the Owner and was functioning prior to the enactment of ADA, it is exempt with 1 major exception. That exception applies under the employment for which an Employer is required to make the facility functional for the handicap employee.
I could be wrong, but I think that is the situation at hand and will be the reason that the person in the original article will lose his legal fight.
Oh, and a side note that may irk some people, ALL business's have the legal right to refuse to do business with anyone they so chose. Those business which have not become compliant with ADA have in essence chosen not to do business with a select group. In exchange, that person(s) should not hesistate to make a like decision with their wallet. In a free market enterprise, in the end, the consumer will win. At least that is what I think, but I could be wrong.
Sir Metro
When are handicapped people just going to learn that they're not welcome anymore....
If God wanted them around he wouldn't have handicapped them, right?
Most folks befault you for your statement of sheer attention making. I personally like to beleive that you suffer a handicap of the mental capacity. Your unable to engage your brain before typing an ignorant opinion. May you someday have the blessings of being cured of this mental ailment. Until then get some therepy for the faulty mindset.
The one poster is correct on the Pre-law exemption ruling . Its called the Grandfather clause. There are actually historic buildings that are non compliant because to change there structure would deter from its Original archictect. Imagine changing a Frank Lloyd Wright design because it was non compliant? Or the Jefferson Home....
Business's that DO update to become compliant are often given a tax break...
that would be tragic if they did have to tear down all the old buildings....
sue the store,not the lottery....
This sounds like some reporter spinning things to make a story something it is not. The stores are not in compliance with the law. It has nothing to do with the lottery. If the man had found a coupon for a free Pepsi on the ground, and couldn't get into the stores to redeem it, it would not be the fault of the Pepsi company.