Lagging on handicap access

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To the Editor:

Times are changing. I am just wondering how long it will take the Island business owners to make their businesses handicap accessible.

After living on the Island for many years, it is now coming to my attention just how many businesses are not handicap accessible. And that is not only the small shops on the Island, it also goes for doctors’ offices and dentists’ offices and even the Dukes County Courthouse. For the number of tourists coming to the Island each year, you would think that business owners would be taking the initiative to bring their businesses up to speed.

I know disabled people who have to leave the Island to go shopping, because they are tired of shopping for items from the doorway of the shops on the Island. This is a great injustice to the longtime residents of the Island and to the baby boomers who will be reaching their mid to late sixties in the next few years.

Come on Island business owners, do you have to wait until someone you love can’t make it into your shop before you do something about it? One last thing, to the people responsible for helping people get up to the second floor in the courthouse, it’s not an amusement ride, and if it were, it would be a very unsafe one. The lift is a very unsafe way to transport someone in a wheelchair. Falling to that marble floor could really hurt, if not kill someone? Something needs to be done about this.

Donna Marshall

Oak Bluffs