[Ansteorra] RE: [Ansteorra-announce] Tavern at Queens Champion

Richard Threlkeld rjt at softwareinnovation.com
Sun Jul 17 07:20:24 PDT 2005


Modius asked me to post this which was a private response to his ADA posting
on the Red Tape list which is reproduced after my response.

------------------------------------------------------
 
You might want to talk to Meridies Seneschal or the last Gulf War Autocrat.
This issue was brought up (by a member from Ansteorra) with regard to Gulf
Wars and its site. The guy hired a lawyer who was part of the team that
crafted the ADA law and was quite strident about us having to do whatever it
took (including providing him with a golf cart to use as he saw fit at our
expense [though he offered to bring his own golf cart]) to make handicapped
people fully able to participate.

It was further said that we could not question the fact of a handicap, its
effect on the individual's ability to participate, or its remediation. In
particular, we could not ask for any documentation and must accept his word
for it. An example was despite Larry's rules about dogs on site outside of
coursing dogs, anyone could declare they are handicapped - physically,
mentally, or emotionally - and needed their companion dog with them. We
could not ask for documentation. Further, it did not have to be a dog. It
could be a snake, frog, whatever.

They bumped it up to Society and got a reading from the agency that run ADA
who said none of that applied because we were a private group renting a site
that was only rented to private groups and did not accept campers at large.
If it was a public campground, it might have been different.

You may already know all this in more detail than I have, but being on staff
and having the guy from Ansteorra, I got more info on it than I wanted.

In service,

Caelin on Andrede

From: redtape-bounces+rjt=acm.org at ansteorra.org on behalf of Erik Langhans
Sent: Fri 7/15/2005 2:27 PM
To: ansteorra-announce at ansteorra.org
Cc: redtape at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Redtape] ADA, Sites, and the SCA

I was in the process of creating a reply to this topic and interestingly
enough as I was crafting my response I got an email from my predecessor
Mistress Clarissa. I ended up melding the two emails together. Great minds
and all that.

As has been said, the Kingdom tries to be as accommodating as possible when
it come to the ADA. But it is ultimately the site owner's responsibility to
ensure that the site meets the standards and guidelines of the ADA and not
the SCA's responsibility. Branches of Ansteorra do not have the requirement
to meet all the needs of the disabled. This is impossible to do so. It is
not always possible to have an event where everything is close together, has
no stairs or has no holes in the ground etc etc. SCA camping in particular
is not normally held at modern campgrounds with graded roads, and developed
camp sites and so forth. The bottom line is that event and camp sites are
harder and harder to find and becoming increasingly more expensive. Many of
the site we use are not optimal for those with special needs.

I hear your concerns. Many if not most of the problems outlined can solved
or at least mitigated by talking with the steward prior to the event. Keep
in mind that no steward will be able to take into account all the special
needs that the members of our fair society have. However with advance
planning, the person who has those special needs or issues can make the
determination of attending the event or not with a simple phone call or
email to the steward. People with special requests have always been
encouraged to call event stewards ahead of time and I wholeheartedly
encourage them to do so.

I will be chatting with Sir Alesis our Kingdom legal advisor in more detail
regarding this topic. Thank you all for your concern and care. 




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