FAIR FOR ALL

PALMER — After a year’s worth of efforts, how does the fair rate when it comes to providing access for disabled patrons?

Pretty good, said Dave Barton, who works as the Americans with Disabilities Act Partners Project Coordinator for Access Alaska.

“We’ve seen a lot of vendors add ramps this year,” Barton said Thursday. “They’re making accommodations where they need to.”

Barton was part of an Access Alaska team that toured the fairgrounds last year offering tips to vendors. The fair, with its tight warrens of booths trucked in from all over the state, isn’t exactly the easiest place to make accessible.

He gave the example of a booth on a wheeled trailer that might be 18 inches off the ground. Rule of thumb is that an inch of height requires a foot of ramp. So an 18-foot ramp?

“That’s a very large ramp to build and it’s technically infeasible to do it,” Barton said.

But ramps aren’t the only option. Some booths just needed to lower their service windows so they’re useful to patrons in wheelchairs. Others might be fine but just need large-type menus. And then there are those where the only solution is a change in procedure.

“Sometimes you may even have to come outside of your booth to serve the person on the curbside,” Barton said.

The rules don’t mandate impossibly large ramps. But they do mandate that businesses do what is feasible, Barton said, to allow all patrons an equal opportunity to participate. And there is no exception based on age of the building or business.

“If you’re one of those older booths that were built prior to the ADA adoption there isn’t a grandfather clause. You still need to provide accessibility.”

But it’s not like Barton and Access Alaska are out there picking fights. It’s more of a team effort, he said.

“I had vendors who recognized me who’d come out and grab me and say, ‘Hey come over here and take a look at this,’” he said. “I had guys call me months in advance while they’re prepping to get their booths ready for the fair.”

So far, he said, it’s paid off. The fair has done some work to its permanent infrastructure — laying down asphalt to smooth out the entrances and exits to its bathrooms, adding ramps to its performance stages.

And the vendors have been accommodating. Some went to heroic lengths, Barton said.

“I saw one individual who actually dug holes in the ground and sunk her wheeled trailer,” Barton said. “She sunk (the tires) into the ground as low as she could so that her side service window would be 36 inches off the ground.”

He said he was heartened to see someone would go that far and that the fair was flexible enough to allow it.

It doesn’t have to be an onerous task to make a booth accessible. Barton said the disabled community has twice the spending power of the teenage demographic.

The construction costs also don’t have to be shouldered alone. The IRS offers tax incentives for these kind of improvements, he said, something he’s quick to note when making presentations to the business community.

Barton said the work he’s done with the Palmer fair has translated to the fair in Fairbanks and may even gain recognition in the Lower 48.

“This effort that we’re doing here in Alaska is somewhat unique,” he said. The lessons learned in Alaska have already been shared in Virginia and may soon be presented in Washington state.

“The things that (Palmer fair organizers) are going through right now will translate into other fairs around the nation following their lead.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.