Everybody Out of The Pool

Well, it finally happened…

I was actually thinking about voting for Obama, but then the ADA, with the full support of the Obama administration and the Department of Justice, passed a new regulation that mandates that public-access pools and spas must all have permanent pool lifts installed to give access to our disabled citizens. That includes hotel and Motel pools and spas.

I don’t give a rat’s rear end for pools, but one of my few remaining pleasures in life is to climb into a hot tub at my motel at the end of a travel day.  I soak for about half an hour and that is as good as… well, I’ll let you supply the rest. (My wife never reads my columns, so I can take a lot of liberties with what gives me pleasure.)

Now every single pool and hot tub in America that is not somebody’s private paradise must have a lift installed to enable the handicapped to enter and exit whenever they want to.  These are estimated to cost between $3,000 and $5,000 per lift, plus another $5,000 to $10,000 for installation,  They cannot be portable, so a pool area with hot tub/Jacuzzi will need at least two of them.  And hotels that have a suite with Jacuzzi inside will have to install a lift there as well.

The new design standard was passed down by the Department of Justice on July 26, 2010.  On September 15, 2010, the Final Rule for the Accessible Design for Recreational Facilities, including public pools and spas, was published in the Federal Register. These standards became the law of the land on March 15, 2011, and compliance was required by March 15, 2012 until that deadline was extended to May 21, 2012. 

Since my wife and I have planned a trip for June of this year we will be just in time to enjoy all the “benefits” of this new mandate.  Since it is anticipated that most franchised properties will opt to close their pools rather than try to comply with the new law to the tune of thousands of dollars, I suspect that I will most likely not partake of any hot tub soaks on my trip. 

Thank you, President Obama and Attorney General Holder. I have shared hot tubs with the disabled in the past, and the ones I sat with did just fine with human assistance, which included mine at times.  They got along okay without your stupid and ignorant rules, but now we can all forget about future forays to the pool.

Regarding that opening statement, the one about “…thinking about voting for Obama,”

I don’t want to mislead you there. I was thinking about how anyone not on food stamps, SSI, Medicaid, extended unemployment benefits, welfare or any other form of government aid and dependency—in other words almost anyone with an ounce of intelligence or self-motivation—can vote for this unknown entity whose only revealed philosophy seems to be counter to our culture and law. But then, those groups I listed above are fast approaching, or might have already exceeded 50-percent of the population.  I guess that if they can be dragged to the polls on Election Day, we’ll have four more years of this-if we live that long.  I’m anticipating that the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) authorized in the new Healthcare Law will disapprove my next coronary procedure as being “not cost effective”.