By snoadmin
It is busy at the Outpost restaurant and convenience store during lunch, and sometimes it seems almost impossible to even get through the doors because of all the people blocking the way. Imagine trying to do that with a disability.
The Outpost has signs outside its doors showing that it is accessible to disabled people. However, there is no switch or button to open the doors.
“We acknowledge that the doors are not ideal,” said Rosa Hernandez-Henderson, 49er Shops director of communications. “That’s something we have actually talked about internally for quite some time.”
Hernandez-Henderson said that during the last two to three years, 49er Shopsadded door switches and buttons throughout its facilities on campus and that the Outpost restaurant and convenience store are on the capital improvement list for the next budget.
Because of cost problems during the construction of the Outpost restaurant and convenience store, the door situation had to be fixed by retrofitting actuators, and it would cost more money to make the doors accessible.
According to Hernandez-Henderson, all the facilities on campus follow the regulations of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
“Weight of the doors, the entrance and even the spaces inside are compliant in all the facilities,” she said.
49er Shops has worked with Disabled Student Services to make its facilities accessible to everyone.
“Sadly, the law says you are not required to have actuators,” said David Sanfilippo, director of DSS. Sanfilippo said there are 12 door projects pending in various buildings on campus, including the Vivian Engineering Center and Counseling and Psychological Services.
According to Sanfilippo, the new science and nursing buildings will have actuators. He said the DSS is trying to control the construction early in the project to make sure these things get done.
Sanfilippo said the DSS sometimes gets complaints from students regarding the accessibility and that it has received one complaint about the Outpost. 49er Shops has not received any complaints from the Outpost.
“Actuators are always a better suggestion than doors,” he said. “We hope that one day we revise the ADA standards, that they have at least one opening in a building that has actuators, so we don’t need to deal with these kind of situations.”
According to Sanfilippo, the Cal State Long Beach campus is about 95 percent accessible.
“There is always room for improvement. There’s probably no campus in this country that is totally 100 percent accessible, at least none of what I have seen,” he said.
Sanfilippo also mentioned that one of the biggest improvements to accessibility was the library.
“We finally got an elevator to access the multimedia building,” he said. “That was one of the last areas that was inaccessible to our students.”
The DSS has been a part of the construction of the new Student Recreation Center since the beginning, and the building will be fully accessible, including all the equipment.
“It is exciting that we can be a part of a building from the ground up. We have the blueprint sign-off, so we can look at things ahead and make sure that everything is done right,” Sanfilippo said. “Accessibility is a key issue. You can’t say, ‘We have an open-door policy’ if you can’t get through the door.”
