I’m feeling just a bit fired up here, so let’s delve into this a bit further, shall we? I was disgusted when I read Karen’s initial post – I just about completely lost it when I read that she was dealing with a MANAGER of an establishment. And then someone-who-shall-remain-unnamed in my F2F life, argued with me the validity of Karen’s claims. This ‘warmy’ (how I describe people in my right-here-next-to-me life) thinks that she shouldn’t even be upset at all. This person thinks that maybe she could have just gone to the speaker, waited a few seconds, and then hollered her order into it, and then pulled forward. (The ‘warmy’ dug himself out at this point, saying that she could then say, “I did order at the speaker.” Too late – said ‘warmy’ was just too deep.) And now I’m even more fired up!

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states in Title III, straight from the US Department of Justice website:

Public accommodations must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment. They also must comply with specific requirements related to architectural standards for new and altered buildings; reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures; effective communication with people with hearing, vision, or speech disabilities; and other access requirements. Additionally, public accommodations must remove barriers in existing buildings where it is easy to do so without much difficulty or expense, given the public accommodation’s resources.

The emphasis in the paragraph is mine. Would it have been effective for her to go to the speaker and speak into it, not knowing what, if anything, was being said back to her? No. Does effective communication require two or more people? Yes. If I am deaf, and I go to the speaker and talk – that is just me. Alone. The argument came up in my mind about people giving speeches – that is just one person. However, if the entire audience is deaf, and there are no interpreters, then that is not effective communication, is it? So effective communication does require two or more people. One may only be listening, or receiving, the communication, but, without your ‘receiver’ – you are just telling the wind.

The Council for Disability Rights website provides ADA FAQ’s for those of us non-lawyer types. They explain the above referenced section of Title III, in part, as such:

  • May a public accommodation require people with disabilities to meet certain standards of policies, especially safety standards?

A public accommodation must not use eligibility criteria or standards which screen out or tend to screen out people with disabilities unless it can be shown these criteria are necessary for the safe provision of these services. Safety considerations must be based in real, immediate threats of danger to others, not on stereotypical assumptions. In addition, a public accommodation must make reasonable modifications in policies, practices and procedures unless it would fundamentally alter the nature of the goods and services offered.

Again, the emphases is in the above paragraph is mine. Speaking to the first emphasis, would it be unsafe to take the order of the patron from the same window through which you will eventually serve them their food? No. Some fool might say, “We have to know they are real customers, it’s unsafe to have them just come up to the window. They could shoot us.” To which I would retort that I could order a burger, as if I’m just a customer, and then once I get to the window, shoot you. People are going to come to your window – it’s a drive-thru.

Speaking to the second emphasis, would it fundamentally alter the nature of the milkshake if I were to order at the window? Would my milkshake be salty? Would it have hamburger meat in it? As far as ‘altering the services’ goes, would you suddenly be physically unable to reach out the window to hand it to me? No, no, and no.

Just give the woman her damn milkshakes, would you?!