Now the U.S. government is going after SeaWorld
What is the most hectic job in the theme park business?
I have worked crowd control in front of Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World on New Year's Eve, so I have seen how busy a park can get. From loading non-stop dark rides to cleaning up after sloppy tour groups, the people who work at theme parks have a lot to do and a lot of people counting on them to do it, ASAP.
But looking at the news this week, there is one job that now stands alone as perhaps the busiest in the theme park biz. And that is working as a lawyer for SeaWorld's parent, United Parks & Resorts.
The line-up of organizations suing United Parks grew again this week, as this time the U.S. Department of Justice joined the queue, following SeaWorld's long-time IP partner Sesame Workshop earlier this month. [Sesame Street looks to get out of its SeaWorld deal.]
Last fall, United Parks banned the use of rollators with seats in its theme parks. The "Accessibility" pages on its parks' websites state, "Rollators with seats can pose a safety concern when not used properly, particularly when someone is seated and the device is pushed by another person. Despite reminders and previous steps, including requiring signed waivers, we continued to see misuse and safety-related incidents. For these reasons, rollators with seats are not permitted."
Many fans reacted in bafflement at the company's decision: What was SeaWorld thinking with its new disability policy?. The DOJ announced that it would investigate what appeared to be a clear violation of the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires businesses to enable reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities.
This week, the other shoe dropped, and the DOJ filed suit. You can read the complaint here.
"The ADA requires equal access for people with disabilities, and theme parks such as SeaWorld are no exception," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the department's press release. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida and lists Busch Gardens Tampa, SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica, and Discovery Cove as co-defendants.
"The ADA requires UPR to permit individuals with disabilities to use manually powered mobility aids, including walkers, in areas open for pedestrian use," the department said. "The lawsuit seeks a court order to force UPR to stop discriminating against individuals with disabilities, to modify its policies to comply with the ADA, and to train its staff on the ADA. The lawsuit also seeks monetary damages to compensate aggrieved individuals subjected to UPR’s discrimination and demands UPR pay a civil penalty to vindicate the public’s interest in eliminating disability discrimination."
I continue to wonder what United Parks management was thinking in implementing this policy. If individuals are behaving unsafely in your park, you have every right to eject and trespass them. If you are afraid of them suing under the ADA because they were using a disability aid in an unsafe manner, creating a blanket ban to eject those people did not end up protecting United from such a lawsuit - it invited that suit, instead.
Disabilities are not always absolute. People can suffer from conditions that are not complete impairments. Many people with back and leg disabilities can walk, but only for short distances. But it is important that they do walk for those short distances, lest the day come sooner when they cannot walk at all. Thus, the rollator.
It's an appropriate solution that has worked for countless guests at Disney and Universal and Merlin theme parks in Central Florida. Why United Parks believes that it cannot work for guests at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens... well, that soon might be something for the company's lawyers to argue in front of federal jury.
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My understanding is the park offers visitors using rollators with seats, a complimentary rollator without a seat to use in the park while they are visiting. Apparently, there have been multiple injuries with rollators not being used appropriately. The Williamsburg parks just put a warning tag on the rollator reminding them not to use as a wheelchair, but don't restrict them.
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I always thought corporate lawyers were supposed to "keep" you out of trouble. Whichever one advised them to do this in the first place, essentially inviting more work for the legal team, needs to be replaced.