Monday, April 2, 2012

RV resort "pool-mageddon" gets two month reprieve

In a move that has left many RV park owners breathing a sigh of relief, the US Department of Justice issued a 60-day hold on a rule that would have made RV parks and other facilities with swimming pools install ramps or wheelchair lifts to make access for the disabled much easier.

Dubbed "pool-mageddon" by those who opposed the expanded rules under the Americans With Disabilities Act, publicly accessible pools and spas would have been required to added access ramps or lifts to aid disabled people. Many RV park owners had understood that portable lifts, which could be stored away when not in use, would have been acceptable under the mandate. However, just before the new law would have swung into place, questions popped up that caused some to worry that the lifts would have had to have been permanently placed.

The problem, said many resort owners, was a vision of unsupervised children climbing on the lifts, possibly falling off them and into the water, or perhaps worse, onto unyielding concrete pool decks. Many RV park owners said the specter of liability issues would force them to simply close their pools down rather than to comply with the new law.

Late in March, the Obama administration granted a 60-day reprieve, suggesting it might even float a six month moratorium on the law, allowing time for the government and pool owners to sort out the issues.

photo: opemed on flickr.com

2 comments:

Dave in Mesa said...

It is just more government control of our lives. At our RV resort we have always helped the disabled in and out of the pool. And they have never complained.

Anonymous said...

This is exactly why our government - whether Republican or Democrat - is screwing us all. If the added cost and liability is too much for a business, they're just gonna fill-in the pool. At least if I was barely making it by financially, that's exactly what I'd do