[Sca-cooks] Food rant...

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Gorgeous Muiredach wrote:
>  Good suggestion.  Problem is...  I boycott Whole Foods Market, because of
>  the level of discrimination they show to people with disabilities, and the
>  general lack of responsiveness they have shown when issues are being
>  brought up.  I dont' know about WFM in other parts of the country, but
>  'round here, they are *really* bad.  Things such as plastic bags being out
>  fo reach (too high), the way fruits and vegetables are being displayed
>  (also way too high), the way they use extra "temporary" shelves and
>  displays in the aisles make them too narrow for a wheelchair, the way they
>  don't regularly clear shopping carts from the accessible parking spaces
>  (shopping at that mall, had that problems 3 times in less than a week, each
>  time lodging a complaint, to no avail), the way they don't have the
>  required number of accessible parking spaces, and the list goes on...

Hmmm, i'm so sorry to hear about your problems. Berkeley is a very
disability-friendly city. I often see people shopping in their chairs
in the local whole foods. All the street corners are sloped so people
in chairs can get up and down easily. I'm sure they have some
obstacles that i haven't noticed, but i suspect the greatest obstacle
is other shoppers.

I'm short, not extremely so - 5'1" - and i often have to ask other
shoppers to reach things off shelves for me. Trying to shop from a
chair would be much more complicated.

Perhaps the managers of the particular Whole Foods near you need a
bit of educating. How to achieve this i couldn't say, but i'm sure
that if they aren't complying with the law, they could be encouraged
to make some changes.

Anahita