Duane Reade Drug stores — a New York City chain — is being sued under the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as New York City’s human rights law. The charge is that its stores are so stuffed full of merchandise that they are not wheelchair accessible and therefore violate laws designed to protect the disabled.
The lawsuit is a good example of how laws can have unintended consequences. Should the lawsuit succeed, lawyers would certainly turn their attentions to other over-crowded stores. But what is the likely outcome?
Given that retail space in New York City is incredibly expensive, it means that some stores simply might not be able to survive profitably in their high-rent locations. At a minimum it would mean that any retail store which could succeed in such a location only by stuffing it chock full of merchandise would no longer be profitable. As Duane Reade’s latest 10-K report put it, “Flexibility in configuring stores provides us with a competitive advantage in securing locations for new stores, as many of our competitors target more standardized spaces.”
Frankly, this lawsuit is likely to be successful and is yet another example of how misguided the ADA is.
Source:
Tight Retail Spaces Prompt Suit by the Disabled. David W. Dunlap, New York Today, June 27, 2001.