Separate but equal?

Separate but equal? Or perhaps I could call this blog Another Side of the Seating Problem

There is one place I like to go to that has a wine shop downstairs, and a restaurant upstairs. There is no elevator. Most often we go to the wine tastings, which are downstairs, but sometimes I like to attend a wine tasting meal or just get dinner, which ordinarily would be upstairs. Their way of accommodating me is to set up a table downstairs in the private salon for however many are in my party. I don’t go to the restaurant upstairs.

I have trouble with this arrangement. It feels more like “separate but unequal” to me than “separate but equal”. The salon is a nice room, even their warehouse where they set up a table once in a while is ok. It isn’t the setting that bugs me. It isn’t the service either. By being in the salon, I’m really getting first class service as opposed to the usual coach. Once in a while they are a bit slow to come down to tend to us, but it’s rare, and if something happens (like a spilled glass of wine) we (meaning someone other than me) have to go upstairs to find help. But overall, the service is excellent.

In fact, recently we went to a wine lunch at this establishment on a Saturday with 2 other couples. One of the men is a very good customer at both the restaurant and the wine shop (he even has a wine locker there), and it happened to be his birthday. So, that day we got absolutely the best service you could imagine. We had the private room, because of me, and some special treats, because of him. I had called to make the reservation, and mentioned his birthday and that it would be nice to have a cake for dessert. They came up with the best carrot cake I have ever eaten in my life. I think they spoiled me, for I haven’t been able to eat any other carrot cake since –they are all too cream-cheesy or too sweet now. If he had been with other people he would have been upstairs.

Uniformly, everyone tells me things are much nicer when they are with me, because they can be in the salon! It’s more private, or it’s quieter. Setting is nicer, service more personal…. And I’m pleased to hear all of this. But all the same, I find it hard. It’s because I don’t have a choice in the matter. And if there’s any day when the salon is not available for any reason, I’m stuck – and most likely will not attend the event scheduled upstairs. These has happened a few times, one time when they were using the salon room for storage, which made me quite annoyed. I brush it off then, that they just don’t want my business bad enough. If this happened too often, I’d not go there at all.

I suspect that in a pinch, they will muster up the men required to carry me and my chair upstairs, but I hate to be carried. I don’t like the feeling in general, and unless there are 4 men and an easy stairway, I worry about the backs of the men doing the carrying. 4 men means an average of 50 pounds a person carrying an awkward package, which isn’t easy, but not crazy either. Any fewer people, means too much weight per person.

One day I know there will be a wine dinner, with a guest speaker – most typically the winery owner or winemaker – and the only way to hear them speak will be to be upstairs. If I really want to go, I’ll find out how hard carrying me will be. I’ve been tempted a few times, but none of the events has worked out to date.

Wine collecting is a hobby of Jim and me. We have about 450 bottles or so, most of which are aging in temperature controlled fridges. In the past 5 years we’ve learned a lot about wine, and enjoy visiting wineries and going to tastings. We keep a spreadsheet of all the bottles, with stats like price, varietals, regions they are from and when to drink them. Our system isn’t working perfectly yet, because we tend to drink more whites than reds, but buy more reds than whites. We buy cabernets because they age well, but don’t eat the red meat that goes best with them very often. Consequently we have about 20 reds in the fridge that should have been drunk in 2009. But overall, we have a good time with our wine. We throw wine parties from time to time, and invite our friends over. And we like restaurants that have wine dinners, especially if they pour them blind, or have small pours of several wines.

I find this to be one of those hard situations to reconcile. I want to fight for equal access, the ability to do what everyone else does. And yet, I am aware that what I’m getting now is probably better. So, I let it go. I have made the wine shop/ restaurant aware of how I feel about all this, but not in a very pushy way – (well I was pushy about them fixing their parking lot at one point, when they didn’t have properly painted access areas). I don’t know if a law is being broken or not. The argument the shop gives is that they are renters, so it’s really the landlord’s problem. The building was built pre-ADA, so they aren’t required to make accessible modifications unless they spend past a certain amount of money on remodeling. Plus the cost of an elevator would be prohibitive, which might exempt them from doing the accessible modifications anyway. All this sounds true to me, from my limited knowledge of ADAAG.

All the same, I have fantasized about having a dozen people in wheelchairs try to attend an upstairs event all on one day. What a madhouse it would be then!

I know the people in both the shop and restaurant, and like them. They treat me well, too well perhaps. We’re good customers, but not in their top tier for sure! Most days I just relax and enjoy whatever we are attending and don’t worry about the special service. But this is one of those events where others looking in might wonder why our party is in the private room, and if the staff says it’s because of the wheelchair, then it would generate negative feelings about people with disabilities getting privileged treatment. And those people won’t have any idea about how I feel about it, and that I’d rather not get the private room. Does this balance out being in the back room at the theater? No. They both should be better.