BizSugar.com › Legal › Proposed ADA rules would affect millions of small businesses

Millions of businesses and other public facilities would be affected by proposed regulatory changes under the Americans With Disabilities Act, the milestone 1990 civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability.

The proposed regulations address a wide range of facilities, including access to courthouses, drinking fountains, amusement park rides, stadium and theater seating, fishing piers, boat slips and bowling lanes, and it would establish specific requirements for qualifying accessible designs. For miniature golf courses, 50 percent of the holes would have to be accessible for players in wheelchairs.

The 1,000 pages of regulations proposed by the Justice Department are drawing intense scrutiny from businesses, which foresee a financial drain, and disability rights advocates, who say the proposals are long overdue but don't go far enough. Both groups say they want more clarity.