seeing none. next item, please. >> item 7, -- item seven, presentation and discussion on the city program for small businesses and making accessibility requirements under both the federal ada and california building codes. presentation by regina dick- endrizzi and neil friedman. >> good evening, small business commissioners and building inspection commissioners. i am here before you this evening to talk about small businesses and disability access, and issues that have been before both of our commissions regarding, sort of, how do businesses get informed in addition to the lawsuits that

have been transferring -- transpiring over the last five years. over the last couple of years, our department's director day, my office, the mayor's office on disability -- we have been discussing what we can do to help educate our small businesses and de-mystify the requirements they need to abide by. what we have heard over the years, in terms of our small businesses and dealing with the requirements, is that there is a lack of understanding of what the laws are, and that these laws are primarily civil rights laws. but they are also accompanied with building code requirements.

usually, businesses, when the have code requirements, whether it is with the department of public health or when they are before the building and inspection, it is all very clear. but with this particular issue, because it is framed around a civil rights regulation, it is not as clear. there is no one agency that is charged with enforcing inspections and meeting requirements. also, there is a great misconception that businesses are grandfathered in, so if they have been in business before 1992 they are covered and protected. and there is a big -- many businesses are not aware of the concept of what is readily achievable and how this gets defined. part of that difficulty is because the final determination of what is readily achievable is

not done by an inspector, but done in the courts. there is also a lack of understanding of what dbi's role is with regards to meeting accessibility requirements and the fact that one may get a sign off and a permit of occupancy but still may not be needing federal ada requirements. many of these businesses, our small businesses, when they are engaged with dbi are doing work which is underthe above which and fresh will. then they are required to spend that additional 20% toward making accessibility requirements. but that may not bring them into full compliance under the federal ada. also, many of these small businesses may not even engage with the department of building inspection. their tenant improvements may be putting something on the walls,

putting in some countries, may be adding shelves. there is no opportunity to engage with the department of building inspection in order to have the department take a look and work with them on some accessibility improvements. we have seen a number of businesses that have incurred these lawsuits. they bought their business as a turnkey operation. there is not any particular agency that is intersecting with them to say, "you may need to take a look at your business and the space you are in, and check on accessibility." with these lawsuits, what we have seen is that some of the key triggers that are triggering new lawsuits is that they are -- that there is a step at the front door. the front door may not be wide enough for easy to open. the service counter -- they do not have an ada service counter

acts 48 inches. the restrooms are not accessible. knowing that there are these sort of gaps of availability of information meeting our small businesses -- i am really talking about the businesses that do not have the availability of having a lawyer on retainer. i worked for a small business that grew and eventually we had legal services that were on retainer and advise us of these laws as we opened and expanded our stores. but with many small businesses, they do not have this. what our departments have done is come together to try to fill this particular role. what we have taken a look at is

how we can easily explain the federal ada, the california building codes, and the enra act. you have a packet of information we have recently put together. this is a one-page sheet that outlines the laws, talks about the inspection, which i will get into in a bit, and ways they can afford to bring their business into compliance. part of our education right now is focused on, because there is a rash of lawsuits, what businesses can do to prevent a lawsuit. but i think ultimately our message and what we want to focus on is that access is good for business, and that it is something that is, in many

times, readily achievable. we really want to encourage businesses to do this well in advance, so there is no need to be concerned about lawsuits. a corps -- one thing that has transpired that i think has been really helpful for our department and our businesses -- when i first started working with the office of small business, there was not be -- the cass certification and inspection. i know you have had some discussions around those inspectors and the upcoming training that is going to be happening with more of your inspectors as it relates to your department. but what we do have now is a program at the state level where architects or other individuals can become

certified access specialists. a certified access specialist can come into a business, assess the business, help the business determine what is readily achievable, what is not readily achievable immediately or may never be readily achievable, create a plan, and then produce a report so the business has some -- it is a little bit of a protection. i think previous to this, even if the business brought in somebody who was an accessibility expert, while they may have had an inspection done, there was not something there that they could present for you, except for if they were sued. there would have to go all the way to court to prove what is readily achievable for them to do. in your packet, there is a nice

flow chart of what the cas inspection does if a business does this. if for any reason a business is sued and they have had a cas inspection -- i am going to take a moment and introduced barney lerner -- arnie lerner, who is on the appeals board and is a cas inspector. if you have any questions, he is answer -- he is available to answer for the cas inspection. a business has 30 days to file for a stay. this is a core component for a business to be able to create a state. the court orders the stay, schedules and early evaluation conference, and 15 days before

the defendant must provide the cas inspection report and the plaintiff must provide a statement or case. in the early evaluation conference that takes place, one issue is entitlement of a stay, under what time frame the violation can be fixed, and conditions of a settlement. the state can continue for up to 90 days. the plaintiff may ask the court to terminate for good cause, and the court may extend the stay for up to 90 additional days if good cause is shown. should the stay been lifted, litigation resumes. the defendant must file a response or amend it and already filed a response pleading.

what is important about this is with many of the businesses we have seen, the readily achievable component or doing access improvement is not what is costly. it is defending themselves in court. that is what has -- that is the difficulty that i think -- defending oneself in court is not readily achievable for most of these businesses. that is what is important about the sb-1608. this is something we are encouraging businesses to do well before they have a lawsuit. but should a letter be sent to them by an individual, they can engage in a cas inspection. that can help prevent any lawsuits.

your packet is, in addition to that, what we have also put together. we have reached out to opportunity loan fund. they have put together a loan program. we also heard for many businesses that they did not have the funds to get a casp inspection. if they were hit by a lawsuit, they could not make their accessibility improvements or even have the funds and to consult with a lawyer. opportunity fund has put together a loan program which we are now able to provide our small businesses. in addition to that, there are federal tax credits and deductions businesses can annually take. we are actively promoting those as well.

early in january, a supervisor -- in january, supervisor carmen chu -- many of her businesses have had drive-by lawsuits. she convened our office, the mayor's office on disability -- she convened us to work together on a program, these materials you have. a press conference was held on january 13, a lot toward the chinese media to get this information out. there are many businesses in her district who were served with lawsuits. since then, which i am very pleased about, our office has

also been requested to come and make presentations. we have now made presentations to the noe valley merchants association, the bayview merchants association, and have been invited to the petreo hill merchants association. last week, i met with the neighborhood economic development associations. if you are not familiar with the renaissance center, the small business development center, these are organizations that do entrepreneurial training. the city funds them. what we have said to them is that the supervisors and the city have an expectation now that we want you to be training the business entrepreneurs about accessibility and what they need to know, and how to access that information.

the city also has a program which is called the neighborhood economic development program. we have managers on the ground in different commercial corridors. they will also be actively reaching out to businesses they have worked with, to educate them about accessibility. what are the laws? it will encourage them to also do the casp inspection. we have heard from business is a lot of frustration around this. the presentation, even though we are encouraging the casp inspection, in terms of our office -- and i think to quote arnie lerner, this is a good risk management tool. we encourage businesses to undertake it in that way.

but there is a sense that people feel this is a little bit of a shakedown, just because of the fear and maybe the lack of understanding of what it may take to bring once business into accessibility, and also the fact that businesses feel that are being signaled out -- being singled out. they would like to see the property owners be more involved in meeting the requirements as well. so i think that is where we are now. neil friedman is here to talk about helping explain, although i think this commission knows more than our commission, the distinction between the federal ada and the california building codes. moving forward, we have the

casp inspection. the department of building inspection has one inspector. the mayor's office of disability has some inspectors. our next step is working together to figure out how we utilize these resources to possibly minimize our small businesses from having to pay the private sector for these services. an additional thing, though this will take some funding and planning -- lawrence cornfield -- kornfield did a great video in 2007 explaining the difference between the ada and the california building codes.

now that we have casp it would be great to do a new video, and promote that as an online tool for businesses to watch. i do have one last thing i would like to add for moving forward. that is that with the sb-1608, the california commission on disability access was formed. i think for the department of building inspection, spall business commission, and mayor's office of disability, working for wood to star providing reports and feedback -- working forward to start providing reports and feedback for that commission. with that, i will turn it over to neil friedman. i also want to state that susan mizner from the mayor's office

of disability is here as well. >> thank you very much. that was a very impressive discussion of the issues. i think you practically steal my thunder. there are just a few things left that i can say. maybe i will preface it all with a couple of items. i was listening to gina give her speech. i was watching myself in the monitor. i saw my father there, who is 98 years old and just starting to use a walker. all i can think is we are all headed in that direction, and we had better get accessibility going pretty quickly. i know for his part he cannot navigate things like short steps to get into stores. although he is no longer actively out in the community, he does occasionally get out there. the other thing i want to say is

that i found out -- i was giving a presentation last week and later when to have lunch at a small cafe which will remain unnamed. it has one of those proverbial four-inch steps in front of it. it is an old building near my office. i will not get more specific than that. i mentioned it to the owner of the place, who i have known for many years, that he had this impediment to accessibility of his front door. he said, "i know, and i do have a couple of customers to come here in wheelchairs' under not able to navigate in to the building." i said, "you might get sued anyway." under the ada, that might be acceptable to have some means

the owner can bring out and put on the sidewalk to allow people to get into the building. but it's still not satisfied ada the way it has written. i do not know if i should say more than that because i am not really an ada expert, nor do a play one on television. let me get into -- i will say one more thing about that. this particular store owner also seemed to think he was grandfathered in because his building was the way it was. it was built probably in the late twenties. he assumed that because he has never taken out and the building inspection permits to do any work in his store that he was safe. i tried to point out to him that he was not. this apparently is a common misconception.

what often happens is that people come in for building permits and think that just because they pulled out a building permit that somehow that protect them from the ada. the ada is basically a federal civil-rights law. it has been in place since 1992. it prohibits exclusion to persons with disabilities from everyday activities. a private business is considered to be public accommodation. in contrast, the california building codes states there is a requirement that facilities that house prices of commercial activity remove barriers to the accessibility, based primarily on alterations, by the definition in the building code, and proper to construction. if an alteration has not taken place, and this would be

something like painting, simple decorative items, the barrier removal would not be required under the california building code. however, if money is spent to do alteration, the alteration would then trigger accessibility of the point of alteration. depending on how much money was spent for the project, you might have to do a complete conversion. the threshold for determining that is approximately $130,000. it changes every january. if the dollar amount for the project goes over $130,000, you are expected to start at the front door and provide an accessible path of trouble all the way to the area of the

remodeled, and to move on to areas like parking. there is part of the california building codes that states are you duvet. there are similar things in the americans with disabilities act. however, they are different. buildings built before 1992 are not grandfathered. but it is expected that if an alteration takes place in a building built before 1992 that not only the area of remodel be accessible, but also you have to start looking at the path of trouble. if those items leading to the area of remodeling are not readily achievable to be made a -- to be made accessible, there is a possibility you do not have to do them. all of this seems to be a little bit subjective in the ada.

unlike the california building code, it is not specific. the california building code would require those things -- providing a path of travel. if it proved to be impossible to provide them, you could possibly qualify for what is called a reasonable hardship. that is based on a mix of ability to do the work to remove the barrier, the amount of money that is being spent, the effect on the business -- things like that. all new buildings are expected to comply fully with the requirements. the same is true with the california building code and the ada. i think i will leave it there. when i was preparing for this, i looked at an enormous volume of materials. this is something that can go

into a five-day seminar easily. it is difficult to pare it down in a way that makes sense, where i do not feel i am leaving too much about. at this point, it would be better to sit back and answer questions, if you have any. i am not sure if i am going to speak independently. if you have any questions, i would be happy to entertain them. commissioner lee: thank you. i have a number of questions on this. there are a number of topics. i know there have been a number of businesses going out of business because of these lawsuits. frankly, a vacant storefronts

are not good for commercial corridors. they are not good for all of us. to cut to the chase, i have an idea. i am going to toss it out there to start the conversation. if you are a business owner and you are being sued or trying to go through the process of making your business in compliance, you're spending money. you are making improvements and changes. but you sit back and say, "what actually changed for me?" do i actually get more business coming into my store? what happens if return this upside-down? how about if we start promoting these businesses that are in full compliance? can we do that? can we help the businesses in a way, once they go through the process of certification?

they posted on their business and say, "we are fully compliant." we start building a list of businesses that are fully in compliance, just like we do for green businesses. the department of the environment has a list of all those businesses you can go to. right now, we are finding a new green buildings also. is this something we can do that may help create a better business environment to certify these firms? >> i think at this point it is up to the small business commission. i personally have participated in joint meetings between the small business commission and the access appeals commission. i have also actively supported the small business commission in whenever meetings they were taking to try to get the word out to the community. i will say again i think the job

they have done is amazing. the information i am hearing now is such a wonderful term from what i saw several years ago. at that point, we were struggling to figure out how we could pay for pamphlets to distribute to the community, and things like that, or how we would distribute pamphlets. it sounds to me like that is already taking place, a very active contingent among small- business owners. >> susan mizner, mayors office on disability. i think it is a wonderful idea that you are having this joint meeting. i applaud you for your endurance. i did want to clarify a couple of things. there isot