Banned from grocery store: human rights issue
 

Hi, it's a long story but I just wanted to post a few details about what happened to me.

A particular security guard who works on the weekends at a particular super market in Toronto has confronted me previously about my Segway. This time she got an employee to tell me I shouldn't come back and then when I asked to talk to the manager I was told it looked unsafe and was banned from the store. This is after I explained to them that I am differently abled and am not able to shop without it because I can't walk more than a few steps currently due to chronic centrally prolapsed disc. I was treated extremely rudely and took it upon myself to call the police who nonetheless compounded the problem by not coming to help and referring me to the human rights council. The human rights council law advise help line didn't help me! In fact they acted like I had no right to be upset because of the rareness of the Segway, even repeating what the store clerk had said, saying that I should have brought a doctors note that says I need a Segway. Nevermind that that violates me privacy and is clearly ableist.

After having another store, the Beer Store mock me and harass me when I came in until a manager set things right (I was told that degenerative disc disease is "just something everyone goes through as they age and they learn to deal with it and get over it" after I had already explained that I've had Guillain Barre for seven years and am partially paralyzed.

I finally took the issue to my local counselor and she is going to contact the MP as well as look into what legal issues are at play here, so hopefully this unfair treatment will stop soon. There should be a permit or some kind of thing to solve this problem.

Anyways other than that so far so amazing.

Do you display a placard on your Segway?

I'm just a little curious.....how do you use the Segway to do your daily shopping?? I suffer with ALS and use my Segway for mobility but I would never attempt to do the grocery shopping with it. I could go in and get a candy bar but certainly can't carry any packages, etc. Not trying to be rude or anything......just wondering how you do it?

I wish I had an answer for you but unfortunately although Canada has done research on the Segway there are no protections in place.

In not well versed in Canadian Civel Rights Law so you'll need to dig to see if there is anything you can hang on this supermarket.

Check out this link, don't know currant status :
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/dan...-faq.shtml#a14

Be Big,
AMAC

Despite the safety weenies protestations about me causing graves harm to life and limb, I use my Segway as needed. *God forbid one of these overseers of potential calamity ever need aid in walking. Because by their own decree they have declare them selves ineligible to us anything other than dragging as solution to their mobility needs. *Life is fraught with risk, and let us not forget that we have an instinctive survival mechanism to deal with danger and so I say to all protectors of my safety feel free to state the obvious to contemplate the what if you (fill in the blank) an kill your self. *I will not expect them *to live up to their own principled protest. *If they ever find themselves *needing a mobility aid I will suggest they try a Segway and warn them the most likely problem they will have is dealing with the safety weenies.

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I use my seg for shopping all the time. I use one of the little baskets for a few things and push a cart if I need more things. I do have a seat on it though, I cant picture pushing a cart while standing. As far a checking out, any store worth their salt and my business will gladly take things out of the cart for you and assist you in getting back to your car if you need it. If they wont, there are plenty of other stores that will. I do it at our Home Depot as well and have bought lumber and all sorts of other things too. Dont be afraid to ask for some assistance if you need it. Best wishes.

I have a string tote that I drape over the handlebars--making the things I pick up visible. As for pushing the carts, I practiced out in the far corner of the Walmart parking lot first <G> but I assure you that it can be done and that your Seg is far easier to maneuver than the shapping cart! So choose your cart...

When on foot, I always seem to get the cart with the wobbly wheel.

I wonder how that would affect the segway, pushing a cart that is out of balance itself, or not tracking straight.

When I have shopped with segway, it always was with a bag or basket off the handlebars. Far more often however, I leave the machine in the front of the store.

I do not have nearly the mobility limitations as some however, so that is not a factor.

I have the cargo kit and just fill up the side bags, works great.

That's a great idea, Lilly. I think I am gonna try the string tote... Thanks. It sounds more convenient than using the plastic basket which is usually kinda wide.

I have shopped using bags and segway storage bins and had very little problems, however, that often takes a relationship with the store manager.

When shopping, and placing items into dark or enclosed containers that do not belong to the store, it places those items out of site to them before you pay for them.

It would not be unlike shopping at a hardware store and placing bolts in your pockets on the way to checkout.

This requires the store believe you will empty those items, all of them, onto the checkout counter. While they may have no desire to presume you will shop lift, neither do they have a way to know you will not.

I do know the manager of the local supermarket, and he would have no problem with me doing this, but that is special consideration that is not normally extended to others.

When using a segway as a mobility device, or anything of that sort, I am perhaps overly careful not to request or even presume more consideration that if I were simply walking the isles.

I believe that the suggestion of a clear bag over the handlebars was suggested, and I think that is a great compromise, if this sort of solution is your choice.

Again, I believe that one of the best considerations to being 100% accepted is to self regulate, and not require the vendor to extend privileges to segway mobilized patrons that they do not extend to others. In other words, a segway mobilized shopper may do the same thing as others in a different way, but they do not do something different.

Since the segway operates as an extension of the rider's body, perhaps the better question is how the wobbly wheeled cart will affect YOU. :)

Folks, shopping with a shopping cart on an i2 Segway is dead simple.

The Segway is more narrow and more maneuverable than the cart.

Just push the cart, with the Segway's leansteer between your arms.

The Segway will follow the cart.

The only issue is with things that are on low shelves. Those are a pain. They're a pain without a Segway, but whatever your threshold of pain, it just moved up 8 inches.

The good news is that the "too high" threshold moves up 8 inches as well. People ask me to get things down for them all the time.

I also carry baskets, or if it's just a few items, I carry them in my hands. I also carry food trays, etc. I will use both hands if necessary and knee steer. I don't recommend doing that until you are comfortable, but it is not only quite possible, it becomes very natural.

But I've been pushing shopping carts since I first got a Segway.

You will have a little problem at the checkout stand. They design those expecting people to squeeze by their carts to unload, and the carts are uncomfortably low for unloading from a Segway.

A bit of strategy helps. First, precede your cart into the narrow area, and empty the cart from the front. Then, escape around your cart, and push from the rear, and continue unloading.

Occasionally, but not often, someone will crowd in behind you, and you'll have to ask them to move back a bit so you can get back around the cart. That's never been a problem.

Thanks Bob.. I think I will try the unloading of the cart next now that you gave some good suggestions... never did that before.

When shopping, I use a basket over my arm. I can usually fit enough for 2 day's worth of food. If I am buying more food, I wear my backpack. At checkout, I put the groceries, my hard case and my backpack on the conveyor. They clerk checks my item and "bags" everything up.

I recently purchased a new home and found that my backpack will easily carry two gallons of paint.

The only thing to remember is not to put too many heavy items in the hard case on the front of your Segway. Ask me how I know! :eek:

Of course, your mileage may vary with rider weight, terrain and speed...

Convention Center use
 

I'm headed to the Moscone Center in San Francisco for the annual international Orthopaedic Meeting. I was well received (after some negotiating) about five years ago at the same convention hall, and I'm calling the center from home (Hanover, NH) to clear the Segway for this meeting.

I'm ambivalent about making this advanced contact, fearing that doing so may give the convention staff an opportunity to deny me access! Am I being paranoid, or are there other strategies I should use instead that might be more useful.

I'm an emeritus orthopaedic surgeon with an above knee amputation on the right and a mature replacement knee on the left (2003).

They can't deny you access. I always have a couple copies of this ADA summary along with my handicap tag.
http://forums.segwaychat.com/showthread.php?t=25902

If they tell you you can't use it, I'd send them the ADA info and let them know I'd be showing up with a lawyer! or since you will be traveling to SF, perhaps someone there who uses a Seg could show up with you.... Frankly, I'm getting a bit fed up with this kind of stuff--and I'm not nearly as willing to make excuses for this as I was in the beginning...

I don't belive in asking permission particularly not on advance.

Do as others have said and carry the ADA info and relax. You'll get in.
I haven't been denied access in a long, long time. Be prepared and be possitive and all should go well.

Patience is a virtue and violators need to be reported.

Even though the ADA passed in 1990 to this day there are rampant violations of the original act. With the new regs less than a year old I would expect that there is still a great deal of educating to do on the Segway front.

In 2003 the Segway was introduced and in 2011 protection of its use is confirmed under the ADA. I say confirmed because it was always protected. Seven years may seem like a long time but the fact is this happened faster than anyone could have hoped.

Enjoy the convention.

Be Big,
AMAC

I don't ask. I carry a copy of the ADA primer off the DRAFT web site and a prescription from my doctor. When I am confronted, and thats not very often, I am pleasant, and patient. The work that has gone before me has made it easy to educate. I did however take me 8 months to get my employer on board with the ADA.

Forget the prescription from your doctor. In the first place, they are not allowed to ask for ANY information about the nature or extent of your disability. They are now required to accept any state issued disability tag OR your verbal statement unless they have some visual evidence to the contrary. If you are turning cartwheels...

I always try to come up with some disability that would leave someone ONLY able to turn cartwheels -- unless they're on a Segway.

Though anybody with such a disorder who gets off their Segway for any reason in a store and starts turning cartwheels, probably deserves to be thrown out for that reason. STAY ON YOUR SEGWAY!

But seriously, that also applies to us. Don't give them a chance to form an uninformed opinion about your degree of disability. You're on a Segway because you need to be. That's all they need to know.

They may conclude you're able bodied just because on a Segway you're standing and agile. But they have no factual evidence, just prejudice, and if they never saw you off the Segway, the "visual evidence" thing can't even enter into it.

If I've been on the Segway for a while, though, my difficulties become pretty obvious. But a lot of people I talk to in stores -- generally other customers -- are surprised that I have a disability. You have to expect that store managers have the same blind spot. But they also have a duty. If they don't accept the copy of my placard on the front, or my verbal statements, then they get the full force of my ADA speech; that they've had 20 years to learn the law, it's enforced by the US DOJ Civil Rights division, and is now *explicitly* covered, because too many people had trouble with the concept.

I try to make it plain that down one path lies a whole lot of aggravation -- pissed off customer, legal hassles, bad publicity, perhaps monetary consequences, while down the other they get a pleasant, satisfied customer who causes no trouble.

My favorite moments are when bystanders jump in to offer support for my statements. Yes, sometimes random bystanders have a better grasp of the ADA than store managers.

Following Up
 

Hi all thanks for responses. In regards to the question of how I shop with my segway gen 1 standing it is simple. I usually am only shopping for a few items when I go to the store such as pop, etc, as I do most of my shopping at the farmers market where it is bagged directly. Since I shop every week and just for two people there's no need to carry too much. That and since there are two of us my girlfriend can carry items at the store as well for both of us.


The grocery store in question got in touch with my through their customer service. They issues a sort of apology while at the same time claiming that the initial reason I was kicked out was for "going too fast" and denied my claims of physical aggression, touching, harassment etc. I was told I can shop at that store again but could care less as I've moved since then and am moving again.


Sadly, that was not the last store to give me crap. Now the LCBO, that's the only liquor store in Ontario for you yanks, has been telling me that they think the Segway is a safety risk. I was told "we don't even let dogs in here" and also asked to provide doctors notes. The legal issues here are supremely ill defined in canada without anything like what you guys luckily have in the US. Here we just passed a law called the Accesible Customer Service Standards but there is no body, I repeat, NO BODY, enforcing complaints from CUSTOMERS. I tried to make a complaint about the store and was given the run around until I learned that there is indeed a call in line for businesses but no one to call as a customer to complain that the law is being violated or the standards not met. For instance the law says that any business with more than 20 employees must provide a plan for how to handle the new standards but when this business didn't, there is no way to force them to. In fact they have two years in which to provide their report of how their plan went, but they never need to share the plan itself, even though it says specifically they have to provide a copy to anyone who asks! Well, too bad because there is no way to make them do that without having a lawyer. I've called a lawyer clinic and will pursue learning about the issue.

I was told while filming the harassment that it is illegal to film in a store because it is private property and we are violating privacy. This after they literally asked to see a note from my doctor, totally private!

The reason I was given as to why the segway was unsafe was "what if there was a bottle lying on the floor". Well, I'm pretty sure that would the the stores preogative and I ought to sue them.


I am trying to put together a campaign to legalize segways in Canada and raise awareness about their use as a mobility device. It always comes down to the same thing.

When I called Human Rights Council advisors they told me I don't have a good case because the perception is not that Segways are for handicapped people, never mind that I'm one of if not the first person to use it as such in my city so my rights don't count!? They are not allowed to deal with any law outside of their limited human rights code so the new laws passed specifically related to disability are NOT INCLUDED and can't be a part of my case! They are the only body that can investigate these problems but they aren't even allowed to go beyond the purview of their existing law that came out way before these electric scooters were available. I was also told that unless I have a doctors note on me at all times that says I specifically need to use a Segway that I am out of luck. I have a note that says I need a standing scooter... but people see that and tell me "uh but it doesn't say Segway." I can reply that the pilot program legalized SEgways as a mobility device and ONLY Segways but at this point security is already there harassing me, telling me to leave and if I don't I will be put under arrest...

Sawbones
 

I was thrown out of a Home Depot some time ago, and decided not to pursue it. I have used carts standing on a p133 with no problem, either pushing it, or pulling it.

I recently built a ramp to help me load my p133 into my Forester and i’d Love to post them. Any advice on how that’s done, and where.

Sawbones

Might need more than 3 posts to be able to download pictures?