Currently Reading Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? By Edward Albee see related

What the fuck.

I think the majority of Chinese restaurant owners in the Bay Area are currently in a frenzy.

If you haven't read the popular Bay Area based Chinese newspaper, then I think you should, cause I was screaming mad after I read it.

Let's start with some history.

In the 90's, the government decided to create a law that made all public facilities, restaurants, and etc available to those with disabilities. I'm not against this; this is a good thing, because it makes it easier for people to partonage a store/restaurant and the like.

But I'm miffed at this:

In the past two years, there have been lawsuits against restaurants that have not been able to comply with this law. And you know what? All those eleven lawsuits were from the same person that was represented by the same law firm.

Now if you didn't get that, I'm kinda pissed.

Basically there's someone who goes to different restaurants, orders a meal, then ask to go to the bathroom. They don't use it, they just check it out and get out of the restaurant without taking their food.

I think that's fucked up.

With the economy as it is now, it's hard enough for restaurants in the San Francisco/Oakland area to survive, let alone those in surburban areas. But to purposely go to different restaurants, just to check if their facilities are accesible to those who are disabled and then get a lawsuit against them is just plain wrong.

All those restaurants are in the San Francisco/Oakland Chinatown area. This area is crowded and tiny, at the time the restaurants were made, this law wasn't in place yet.

Some restaurants paid to get rid of the lawsuit and spent thousands of dollars to create accessible restrooms for the disabled. Others are not as lucky and are unable to get enough money to actually fight the lawsuit and might have to closed down their place instead of remodeling it.

I'm just angry that there's someone running around California, targeting restaurants for money. Not all Chinese restaurant owners are rich. I'm not rich. Shit, my parents work from 10am to 11pm, seven days a week, just to make it work. How the hell do people expect that everyone has money?

One of the restaurant owners actually tried to get help with it, but she was turned down from many associations, just because she was a restaurant owner. They expected a restaurant owner to actually have the ability to fork over that much money. Damn, restaurants need some representation too. Especially the small ones and those who do not understand the legal system well.

Don't people think of others instead of just themselves? As many newspaper readers said, the person making the lawsuit and the law firm just want to make money, and will do just about anything to accomplish it.

Couldn't the person just lay off and give restaurants some slack! Rising food prices and rent are already killing many restaurants. They don't need the extra drama with lawsuits and the like. If you have a problem with accessing the facilities then explain to the restaurant that they need to change their facilities.

I'm not being mean to anybody, I just find it despicable for a person to go around targeting every restaurant they can in order to get money.

Yeah, I feel better after venting this out.

And my restaurant is wheel-chair accessible if anyone is wondering.

Addicted to this!!