Why Being ADA-Compliant is Not Enough to Guarantee Business from Disabled Consumers:

The "Americans with Disabilities Act" is a Federal Law enacted in 1990, requiring that all public facilities, including retail businesses and professional offices open to the public, be fully accessible now.

The ADA is a Civil Rights Law, and non-compliance can cost offending businesses $55,000 for the first offense; and $110,000 for each subsequent offense.

However, many facilities are not "ADA-compliant" now, and may not become truly barrier-free for a long, long time – or never – unless someone makes them do it.

And currently the folks at the ADA are not strictly enforcing their requirements, because they realize that strict compliance with all the provisions of the ADA could be prohibitively expensive - or impossible - for some businesses and professional offices.

Instead, they simply encourage non-compliant businesses to make gradual changes to improve accessibility as they are able.

They call this their "readily-achievable barrier removal" policy.