Malfunctioning power door operators, inaccessible self-service kiosks and the inability to get a braille menu were among the issues people with disabilities faced while eating out as part of a Marketplace investigation into accessibility at fast-food and full-service restaurants in Ontario.
Marketplace put 10 popular restaurants to the test: five fast-food chains and five full-service restaurants.
The findings raise questions about the effectiveness of Ontario’s decades-old accessibility legislation, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), and the province’s overall approach to fulfilling the act’s purpose: achieving accessibility for Ontarians with disabilities.
Hampson, accompanied by a Marketplace producer, visited one Greater Toronto Area location for A&W, McDonald’s, Thai Express, Tim Hortons and Wendy’s to document his experience as a customer with a disability.
He started each trip with a simple question: Do you have a braille menu?
None of the locations he visited could provide one.
“I would have liked to have at least found one that had a braille menu,” he said. “It’s something that needs to be improved upon.”
I mean, as someone who is also blind… it’s a fast food restaurant. Most of those places you’re not even sitting at a table with a menu. Personally and I mean this could just be me, that’s what my phone’s for.
Does the law not provide any private right of action?
In the US this would be solved because any disabled person experiencing these problems could then sue the restaurant for a substantial amount of money. Businesses quickly comply with disability law in order to avoid such lawsuits.
Our disability law is a little toothless and also not federal.
Also I’m pretty sure A&W doesn’t do braille menus in the US either. In fact a lot of times it very depends what town you’re in. Rochester, NY has a lot of visually impaired people and an employer who explicitly hires them, so places tend to be more accommodating there. Boston, MA may not be the same.