Date: April 22, 2001
Latitude: 37° 66" 69’
Longitude: 122° 26" 02
Location: San Francisco, California
Temperature: 73°
Elevation: 280 ft.
Weather: Bright clear, more predicted

POLITICS YOU NEVER KNEW, THREE WEEKS TO LAUNCH!

"Never write when you can speak, never speak when you can nod." 2001 Tip O'Neill biography

Renato's City Hall

Renato Piccininni owns a building that contains his candy business and an adjacent space, a barber shop that he rents to his second cousin. He is eight years older than his cousin. Renato bought the building in 1955, ten years after emigrating to San Francisco from the Veneto region in the north of Italy shortly after World War II. His family ran a candy factory and store in the town of Treviso. The War had forced them to abandon all business in the sweet's trade. The countryside was in economic ruin and further suffered from a mass exodus. It was rumored more Italians had left for Australia than were left in the Veneto region.

He originally bought the building with his brother, who passed away in 1961, leaving Renato with some life insurance money and half of the candy store. With his brother's passing, Renato was understandably saddened, conceivably more, because he had been the only close remaining family member. Renato had never married.

With the insurance money Renato paid the balance he and his brother owed on the building and became the sole owner. He added shelves and counter space for a small ice cream dispenser. The business and the man became a respected part of the North Beach section of San Francisco.

Stacy Fontana was born in 1985. Her hair is light brown, hanging to her shoulders in bouncy curls. Stacy's face is framed in bright red rimmed glasses that magnify her bright blue eyes. She lives with her mother , in fact only six doors down from Mr. Picininni's. Almost every day she stops in front of the store and calls, "Mr. Picininni, it's me Stacy. Are you there?"

She arrives about the same time, two thirty or three in the afternoon. At sixty-nine years of age Mr. Picininni looks forward to Stacy's visit. When he hears her voice, he wipes his hands carefully on his apron, opens the door to the store, walks down the three and a half stairs and smiles his most radiant smile. Holding his hands out he greets her, "Stacy, I hoped you would come by and see me today. How are you? You know," resting his hands on his hips, then throwing them in the air for emphasis, "I have not seen you since yesterday! Tell me everything you have done and don't leave anything out." He takes his hands out of the air and places them next to each of her cheeks and gently kisses her forehead. Backing away slightly he looks into her smiling face and smiles right back at her. "Stacy I think you are the prettiest girl in all of North Beach. Have I ever told you that?"

"Every day, Mr. Piccininni. But that's OK, I like to hear you tell me."

"Can I get you an ice cream, or jelly beans? Anything you want."

"Can I have a strawberry ice cream cone, Mr. Piccininni?"

"Fora-you, anything." He retained an Italian accent when he spoke. "Just aska-me, anything." He turns and walks up the three and one half steps into the store to get the ice cream. Stacy patiently waits outside. She watches the pigeons nest on the Victorian cornice above the entrance door. They flutter about but mostly they sit and make cooing noises.

He returns in less than five minutes. Approaching with the cone and four paper napkins he bends down and hands them to her. Stacy always notices his nearly bald head. She thinks it is kind of funny the way he combs the few remaining hairs all the way over the top of his head. There is a moment of silence while she licks the dripping ice cream.

"You know Mr. Piccininni, "Stacy rolls her eyes between licks of the cold ice cream, "my mothers' friend thinks I should be able to come into your store."

"Anytime, just anytime. I'll get my cousins friend to help and we will both lift your wheelchair into the store. There really isn't much to see."

"I don't really care, but she said there is a new law that says I should be able to go to any store anywhere, anytime. I mean if the store is open and everything."

"That must be a good law. I support that law."

"And my mother's friend said that she would file a complaint against any store I couldn't get inside. I'm not too sure what file-a-complaint means but it sounds kind of bad to me."

"Really? You be sure and tell your mother's friend that Renato Piccininni wants you inside his store and will make sure you can come in anytime you want."

"Oh silly, I know that! She says that the law is for everybody special like me."

Whatta you mean special? Nobody is as special as you. In fact you are extra special." He emphasized extra by saying it loud.

"You're just so silly Mr. Piccininni. You know special means can't walk and stuff like that. Special means help and things, I think."

"Don't forget I will always help. Tell your mother's friend I will always help." He made sure she understood by repeating, "always."

Stacy beams her best smile at Renato and he returns one of his own, just as big. She finishes her ice cream and then rolls her battery powered chair, down the sidewalk. She waves goodbye to Mr. Piccininni and he waves back.

Hallway to Chambers of Lawyers

In time the complaint arrived. It had come from the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, administered through title 24 of the state of California. It stated there had been an official complaint concerning barrier removal for his store. He would be required to comply or face paying a fine. Mr. Piccininni did as the complaint directed. He hired an architect with special expertise in disability access. The architect issued a report concerning all the aspects of the building that were out of compliance. He was then asked to draw plans indicating solutions that would be approved so the disabled would have access to Mr. Piccininni's store. Renato found the process interesting as it showed him the disabled label referred to many human conditions. Blindness, hearing, physically and mentally handicapped.

Mr. Piccininni thought the architect was a bit stiff, and he observed that he was always dressed in what appeared to be expensive modern clothing, but he figured it was part of an architects' job. After all, he thought dressing well would not have been the stuff the former Italian stone mason Palladio would have concerned himself with. He reminded himself this was San Francisco, America.

In the process of his involvement with building inspectors, architects, lawyers and contractors he was forced to become acquainted with a number of facts he was never before aware. He learned that, "some 45,000,000 Americans have one or more physical or mental disabilities...Unlike individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion or age, individuals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of disability have often had no legal recourse to redress such discrimination...census data, national polls, and other studies have documented that people with disabilities, as a group, occupy an inferior status in our society, and are severely disadvantaged socially, vocationally, economically, and educationally." With none of these facts could he disagree. He read them in the Americans With Disabilities Act and they all sounded like common sense to him. It made him wonder why had it taken so long to come around and realize what needed to be done.

Part of the Americans With Disabilities Act that specifically deals with barrier removal in title III states the work has to be done in a timely manner. Easily removed barriers are to be removed at once. However, nothing in Mr. Piccinni's building was easy. It had originally been constructed in 1907, just after the great earthquake. Building codes were adopted in 1925. The facade had to be entirely changed to provide a ramp access for wheel chairs. Because he served ice cream the bathroom had to be made accessible to the handicapped and consequently had to be enlarged. Unfortunately the bathroom was already encroaching on his small commercially usable space. It was decided to expand into the barber shop next door; this would accommodate the enlarged bathroom. This required sacrificing one of the three old chrome barbers chairs in his cousin's shop. His cousin said it was OK by him, as who was he to object to such a worthy project.

There was some counter work to be done, it had to be lowered, along with widening an aisle that was lined with sundry items. These hangers were filled with nickel-and-dime packages thoughtfully placed at a youngsters eye level. They were not worth a lot of sales to Mr. Piccininni but served as a loss leader to entice kids to buy ice cream. It worried him just a little that he would have no place else to put these things and would therefore loose the opportunity to sell them.

Every day Stacy would come by and they would talk about what was going to happen to the store. Stacy was excited about the prospect of being able to enter Mr. Piccininni's store by herself. Sometimes at home she realized this would mean she could go to one small part of the world that everybody else could go. She knew it wasn't much but sometimes little things meant big things.

Mr. Piccininni was excited but not for the same reasons as Stacy. He was going to be seventy years old on the very next Sunday. It wasn't the prospect of turning seventy. It was a combination of new pains in his thighs and his birthday. Compounding these concerns, the lowest bid for the work at the store had come in just under seventy thousand dollars. This was fifty five-thousand more dollars than he had paid for the entire building in 1961. Renato Piccininni knew it was not a fair comparison as money was not worth what it used to be worth. He did not mention this to Stacy. And he wasn't going to mention it. He could not tell this little girl there was the possibility he could not afford to do the work.

He told the Access Appeals Board his situation. They listened carefully to his situation and replied that they took his age and personal situation into account. They also said they had to follow the law and they turned him down.

The candy man told the architect with the fancy clothes about the Access Appeals Board Ruling. The architect replied that he finally had to follow the Access Board's decision. After all, the architect pointed out, he owned the building free and clear.

He then told the bank. The bank's loan officers said these were good reasons to apply for a loan. But finally they rejected him based on a demonstrated lack of ability to repay the proposed loan. Since he had dealt in cash most of his life there were few supporting records to convince the bank. Then there was his age. He knew they weren't supposed to use his age against him, and they never said anything directly, but well, he knew.

He finally told the lawyers at the federal building where they administer these laws in Northern California and they said, "Sorry."

"Sorry?"

"Sorry!"

Stacy would stop by the store every afternoon as usual. Mr. Piccininni would always be excited with her arrival. She would ask, "Mr. Piccininni, when will all the work start?"

"Pretty soon darling, pretty soon. Did I ever tell you that you are the prettiest girl in all of North Beach?"

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