Below is an email from a city bureaucrat trying to explain the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. My favorite part: "Both California Code and ADAAG have provisions that are more restrictive or have different and larger quantity of requirement. One must blend the two together to get the right answer. Under the new ADA/ABA this disparity will widen."
You can't make this stuff up.
In response to the message below, the disability activist to whom the bureaucrat was writing (apparently one of a group trying to bully the Starbucks at 4094 18th Street at Castro, and The Cafe dance club at 2367 Market Street at 17th, over their recent and current renovation projects), had to write back and ask to be told in layperson's terms whether those businesses are ADA compliant.
I pointed out to the activist that:
"Your request to have the matter explained to you in 'layperson's
terms' so that you'll have the ammunition you seek in order to put
pressure on The Cafe and Starbucks is rather ironic, because of course
the owners of those and other businesses don't have that luxury when
they're trying to decipher this hopeless mess of regulation! They have
to wade through it and try to reach an understanding at their own
risk, or hire an attorney or somebody to do it for them and pray that
person gets it right. Because if some bureaucrat gives them the wrong
information, government typically won't take responsibility for the
mistake."
"Just as IRS agents routinely give incorrect information to
taxpayers on filing their taxes, and then the IRS holds the taxpayer
liable for the improper filing, even though he/she was just following
the advice of the agency's own personnel! And more and more people
turn to paid tax preparers because they can't understand the tax code
on their own. (See http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa222.html for a good
look at the disaster that government regulation has created in that
area.)"
"Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, paying the salaries of all the
bureaucrats who spend their time dealing with ADA compliance and other
regulatory excrescence means that the city government can't afford to
keep the streets and sidewalks properly paved, so that they become
full of cracks and potholes such that navigating public thoroughfares
becomes more and more difficult and dangerous for not just cars,
bikes, and pedestrians, but also for people in wheelchairs or with
other disabilities."
"One of the most predictable things about statism is the Law of
Unintended Consequences (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_
unintended_consequences#The_Law_of_Unintended_Consequences)."
Probably Justin will be angry with me, which is unfortunate because he is a leftist who just pleasantly surprised me by posting a really positive message about government lawlessness on income taxes, but I felt it needed to be said. [I'll forward the thread with the tax message, which relates to a Board of Supervisors resolution about DEA raids, separately.]
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))