Let’s Roll Kentucky – TriumphKY# – Bathrooms and Businesses no.1

 

Let’s Roll Kentucky

Meeting with
Heidi McKenzie
Darrell Mattingly
Carolyn Burnette

Hello everyone,
I’m a bit behind in posting this, especially since we just had our May meeting last night!  We discussed more in that meeting that I will post soon!  Until then please read this article and get an idea of where we are going with our Bathrooms and Businesses!
Blessings!  Carolyn

Heidi McKenzie, the queen of Lexington, and Darrell Mattingly, the best attitude in town, and I (regular joe lol)  met at The Campus Pub on Waller Ave. in Lexington to talk about our vision and mission statement for Let’s Roll Kentucky.  We talked about several items and one that kept coming up was the issue with public bathrooms for the handicapped at many of our local restaurants and pubs in Lexington.  There are several very old establishments that are not required to update their bathrooms because they were built before the laws were established back in 1992.  That was quite a while ago and we are thinking that these places would probably like to open their doors for the handicapped community to be able to enjoy some time with them for food and entertainment.  One in our group that I’ve been with to several places, (that will remain unnamed because we are not here to point fingers but to help), has been actually physically hurt from using bathrooms in some of our local establishments.  One place that was newly remodeled caused him an injury to his hip that lasted over 2 weeks.  I could make a bulleted list here about the different places we have been with handicapped bathroom issues that pertain to my friend.  You see, my friend has a left-handed deficit and most handicapped bathrooms are for people with right-handed deficits.  The ADA rules in place my left-handed-deficit friend still has a problem.  We could get really graphic in the description here of what it takes for a person with one working hand to be able to go to the bathroom but I will spare you.  It does matter which way the doors swing, in or out, left or right, how deep the stalls are, how far away the toilet is, how wide the stall is, will it accommodate the wheelchair or not?  Does the person have to walk a few steps to get to the toilet if their chair won’t fit in the stall?  What if the person cannot walk?  Well, we had a funny instance at a restaurant I will name the other day, Durango’s Mexican Restaurant in Idle Hour.  My friend came out of the bathroom saying it was a fail and a success all in one!  Lol !  He said the bathroom stalls were too small and too short to fit his chair inside, but the toilet was so close to the door that he was able to pull his chair all the way up to the door and transfer over to the toilet, then pull his chair in so his legs were under the door, and he closed the door!  Wah-La!  Lol!  So, he said, we can go back there again!  Yay!    I love their food! 

But, anyhow, back to the subject.  There are bathrooms all over this city that need to be remodeled so that everyone in our community can enjoy visiting the establishments. So, in our discussion, Heidi and Darrell and I have decided we are going to look into the possibility of grants to help local businesses remodel their bathrooms.  There is one place that I want to start with because the owners are lovely people and they have a great saloon with an awesome stage and a big open floor, perfect for us to come in and enjoy a live music show!  But we don’t want to stop there, there’s a lot we want to do.  For right now we are still researching.  Darrell is our man for that and he’s going to be sending us the specifics soon about what businesses are eligible for the grants.  He also knows some awesome grant writers.  We are feeling pretty good about this productive and positive way to approach this, and Sound of Lexington is open to doing fundraising shows if it turns out that grants are not available for establishments that are not eligible for grants.  This is a great city to live in for the friendly people and growing music scene and lots of locally owned restaurants and food trucks.  Everyone one of us want to be able to enjoy going out and not having to worry if we will be able to use the restroom facilities or not.  Needless to say, it is a big damper on an evening if you know you cannot get in and use the bathroom, or if you do get in there is no privacy and you have to ask strangers for help?  Just because people are in a wheelchair does not mean they don’t mind having to expose themselves in front of people.  As an able-bodied person I am learning all the time the difficulties that the handicapped community faces and I’m glad if I can help in any way possible to make Lexington a better place for all of us to live and enjoy!  

About our mission statement, well, Heidi is working on it and we will be going over it and will definitely be posting soon.  Keep up with us on FaceBook.  Look for #TriumphKY or “Let’s Roll Kentucky” our group on FaceBook and keep up with our upcoming meetings!  Peace out peeps!  Sending the Love!  ❤