"No Wheelchairs Allowed"
With the Religious Freedom bill passing in Indiana, there's been a lot of discussion surrounding who is welcome in businesses and who can be turned away. Without entering into this debate, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out something that most people just don't think about. When a store or business isn't accessible to people with disabilities (and the ADA is poorly enforced and doesn't apply to old buildings), business-owners are refusing to serve customers with disabilities. Is this intentional? Most likely not. However, the effect is the same. By requiring customers to manage stairs to enter a building or room, they might as well have a big "NO WHEELCHAIRS ALLOWED" sign on the door. Most businesses want to be accessible to people with disabilities. Many employees will often offer help to a potential disabled customer to get them into the building; but offering to carry someone's wheelchair into a building does NOT make that bui