“ALL-ACCESS” Pool Party Held at DC Offices of American Hotel & Lodging Association, Demanding Group Stop Efforts to Block Equal Access

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the height of the summer vacation season around the country, 14 activists from Rochester, NY, joined hundreds of people with disabilities who use wheelchairs, Americans with other disabilities, and their allies  today in front of the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s (AH&LA) offices at 1201 New York Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. The group demanded that the trade group stop their lobbying efforts to block equal access to America’s swimming pools.

For the past three months, AH&LA has waged a full-scale lobbying effort to stop the Department of Justice (DOJ) from enforcing federal law requiring that they make hotel swimming pools and spas fully accessible to people with disabilities, calling such enforcement “unreasonable”. This regulation within the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would require hotels to comply with the federal law passed 22 years ago.

Although the ADA passed in July 1990, very few swimming pools are accessible for those who use wheelchairs. In 2010, the Department of Justice proposed a rule that would require fixed pool lifts or sloped entries in pools. Originally scheduled to go into effect on March 15, 2012, the rule was stalled when the hotel industry, led by the AH&LA, launched an offensive in Congress and with the DOJ. Among other actions, the hotel lobby has supported bills to roll back provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act and to deny the DOJ the funding it needs to enforce the accessible pools regulation. This is an unprecedented attack on the ADA that could set the stage for rolling back civil rights and could severely threaten the viability of all Americans to live independently in communities.

“This is a slippery slope,” commented Center for Disability Rights Chief Operating Officer, Chris Hilderbrant, who participated in the action.  “If you start allowing any backtracking on the ADA, where will it end?  If anything, the ADA needs to be made stronger, not weaker.”

As summer vacation gets underway, over three million Americans who use wheelchairs and others with mobility impairments – including veterans and senior citizens – will be excluded from swimming pools because they remain inaccessible.  Center for Disability Rights will be contacting local hotels whose pools are inaccessible and call for their compliance with ADA law.