Neato Burrito Shows ADA Weakness

Neato Burrito Shows ADA Weakness
by Frank Pizzoli

The current "accessibility" situation with North Third Street’s Neato Burrito partners Shane Edmonds and John Rohrer illustrates many difficulties with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) goals.

After receiving no reply from a June 1999 communication sent first class mail to Edmonds and Rohrer stating that their establishment "has potential violation/s," namely, no entrance "at all accessible to people using wheelchairs," they were sued.

Neato Burrito Store Front "We never saw that letter. We come in, check mail, grab bills, and go. We’re running three locations," Rohrer explains, and Edmonds reiterated. Letter author and civil rights activist Linda Riegel, of the Center for Independent Living, who has since begun sending similar communications via registered mail, had this to say on the matter, "I made a mistake not sending out the first round registered mail."

With no reply, on September 30, 1999, Michael Tyson and Jennifer Niewarowski filed suit in federal court against Neato Burrito because they found it "inaccessible." Edmonds and Rohrer run a four-stool, two seats, tiny table food service, mostly take out. About 300 square feet. They also operate two other Neato Burrito establishments in the region, both of which are handicap accessible.

The business partners may have been surprised if they had read the letter. "We were told by the city that as far as ADA was concerned we were okay, since our ‘use’ went from an existing ‘deli’ designation to ‘restaurant’ with the same square footage, same essential service," Edmonds said. "I’m disappointed in the city," said Rohrer.

At the state level, the PA Department of Labor and Industry had also, according to Rohrer, zoned his business as ‘deli’. "We talked at all levels with health, zoning, and codes people before moving in. We were assured," Rohrer said.

His litany of conflicting information and rules is a work of confusion only disjointed government could produce.

"I asked about a ramp outside and was told the sidewalk belonged to the city. No ramp allowed on their property," Rohrer related. Then, when he proposed a "temporary ramp" — one that would be put down when needed to accommodate a wheelchair — he was told it wouldn’t "meet code."

It gets worse. His popular business is in a historic district. "I was told I could remove the entire front façade, move it back, making room for a ramp not on city-owned sidewalk," Rohrer said. ‘I would have been left with about 200 square feet."

Neato Burrito’s predicament illustrates glaring weaknesses in ADA regulations that interpret the original law; namely, there is no single point of accountability or enforcement. Essentially, the responsibility for compliance rests on negotiations between landlords and tenants.

And although ADA technical assistance materials provide "illustrations" on numerous scenarios — restaurants, parking garages, strip malls, even cruise ships — final deals to pay for costs associated with accessibility compliance are made between tenants and landlords. Either pays the full cost of compliance or the cost is shared in a manner to which both parties agree.

In the real world, most landlords require tenants to bare the brunt of the costs. "That’s not logical. Common sense tells apartment dwellers not to over-invest because they don’t own the property. Why are business tenants stuck with the compliance tab on a lease? Landlords are passing on the cost of permanent improvements to the first tenant or to the tenant, who first faces the issue," said one business owner, not Rohrer, who refused to be identified.

Something else happens in the real world. Businesses move. That’s what Neato Burrito has in mind since their lease is up in February 2000. "We’ve been looking anyway for about six months. We do a good business for 300 square feet, but logic tells you that the closer you are to downtown the better you’ll do," Edmonds explains. The ADA suit was the last straw. "Being sued just sped up our process."