Opening Doors : Workplace: A new federal law attempts to guarantee the disabled equal access at places such as gas stations, restaurants, hotels and stores. But experts say don’t look for dramatic changes soon.

After being stuck at the office until 2 a.m. recently, Jeffrey Stordahl got into a miserable fix on the drive home.

His gas tank was nearly empty. Even though some self-service gas stations were open, that wasn’t much help: Stordahl, 32, is paralyzed from the waist down, and despite his youth and vigor, filling his car’s tank by himself is an ordeal.

So Stordahl, rather than plead for help from a gas station cashier at that hour, said a prayer to himself and sped for 30 minutes from his office in Pasadena to his Canoga Park home. He made it, but not without a scare.

“I didn’t want to be left on the freeway,” said Stordahl, a computer programmer who has used a wheelchair since suffering a motorcycle accident seven years ago.

Some types of help for Stordahl and other disabled consumers are expected to come from a sweeping new federal law, the Americans With Disabilities Act. A key section of the ADA that takes effect today is intended to give these consumers equal access at places such as gas stations, restaurants, hotels, stores and doctors’ offices.

But most experts on the law say dramatic improvements--including late-night gas station service for disabled customers--aren’t in the offing, at least not quickly.

The “public accommodations” section of the law says, in some instances, that improvements in customer service and in building designs to help handicapped consumers should already be in place. A more controversial part of the law for business--a ban on job discrimination against the disabled--goes into effect in six months. There are also provisions ensuring access to buses, trains and telephone service.

Disabled consumers, though, are likely to see only slow progress in eliminating the physical and social barriers they still face. Among other reasons, the law on public accommodations often is ambiguous or lenient toward business.

Another factor is the widespread ignorance of the act, particularly among small firms.

At the same time, many businesses that are familiar with the law are expected to resist costly renovations to older buildings. Under the law, they can argue that it would constitute an undue burden.

Stanley Greenberg, executive director of the West Side Center for Independent Living in Los Angeles, said the ADA was written to overcome discriminatory social attitudes and practices that have developed over many years. “It’s not going to take just overnight to change them,” he said.

“The ADA is really a social experiment,” added San Francisco management attorney Michael J. Lotito, a managing partner of the law firm Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler & Krupman. “The law mandates that we will integrate people with disabilities into the mainstream of American society.

“It’s a wonderful goal,” he said, “but nobody knows what the ultimate costs or benefits will be.”

What pressure there is to act swiftly on ADA is likely from advocacy groups for the disabled. They are widely expected to go on the offensive with lawsuits and public relations campaigns to goad big firms that balk at embracing the spirit of the law. “The concern that business has is that people with disabilities will be unrealistic in their hopes,” Philadelphia management lawyer Michael D. Esposito said.

Still, as most experts interpret the law, firms won’t be forced to take drastic measures to provide improved public accommodations. The reason: A guiding principle of the public accommodations section of the law becoming effective today is that businesses are required, initially, to make only “readily achievable” improvements.

On top of that, recession-plagued businesses that are the targets of consumer complaints are likely to get sympathetic hearings from federal regulators and judges.

When a gas station has more than one person on duty, it normally would be expected under ADA to provide someone to pump gas for a disabled customer--even if the gas station does not provide the service to other people.

Likewise, the operators of a dry cleaning business might have to take care of a customer using a wheelchair in front of the store if a curb or narrow doorway prevents the consumer from entering.

But, lawyers say, at night or at other times when only a cashier is working, that employee will not have to go out to help a disabled customer--at least, that is, when the retailer has legitimate security reasons to refuse the service.

“We want to provide the service, but we can’t leave the store unattended,” said Cecilia Stubbs Norwood, spokeswoman for Southland Corp., parent of the giant 7-Eleven convenience store chain.

In addition, many lawyers say, service stations and other retailers are not required to schedule extra employees at night to accommodate disabled consumers. And, they say, if a business can’t afford to install a wheelchair ramp, wide toilet stalls or other extensive renovations, it probably won’t be compelled to under the law.

Over time, however, the public accommodations requirements will become more clear-cut. New or extensively remodeled buildings completed after Jan. 26, 1993, will have to meet construction standards that are even more stringent than those in California, which has been a leader among the states in providing access for the disabled.

It will mean, among other things, wider stairways in these new buildings and more handicapped spaces in their parking lots.

Still, many executives aren’t worried about the impact of the ADA simply because they aren’t fully aware of what it entails, perhaps because they have been distracted by recession-related problems.

“It’s the most sweeping civil rights legislation in decades, and everyone’s blase about it,” said Louis A. Custrini, spokesman for California’s Merchants & Manufacturers Assn., a lobbying group.

What’s more, even lawyers who have studied the act and its regulations find themselves confused by unresolved questions:

If a doctor maintains a practice on the second floor of a two-story medical building lacking elevators, could he or she be required to make house calls to disabled patients? Can a unionized employer accommodate a disabled worker with a newly created job without first offering it to non-disabled workers with more seniority? More fundamentally, how serious an injury must someone have suffered to be considered disabled under the law?

“These are the tough questions that court cases are going to have to clarify,” said William S. Waldo, a partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker.

Although the Bush Administration is expected to announce shortly a 90-day moratorium on new federal regulations to give the economy a boost, most lawyers doubt that the ADA will be affected because its regulations already have been issued.

Meanwhile, firms that aren’t gearing up for the ADA are putting themselves at risk, lawyers say.

Although the public accommodations section of the law takes effect first, many management lawyers are particularly concerned about the employment section, which goes into effect for businesses on July 26. Particularly worrisome to businesses are the rights granted to the mentally ill, who under the law are considered among the disabled.

Under the ADA, disabled workers who prove in court that they are victims of illegal discrimination in hirings or promotions will be able to win extensive emotional distress and punitive damages as well as actual damages. Those types of damages were not available to many disabled workers previously under federal statutes, although California law already provides unlimited damages to employees with physical disabilities.

What’s more, disabled workers alleging job discrimination will have a right to jury trials. That scares business groups because disabled plaintiffs often find it relatively easy to win jurors’ sympathies when they sue well-heeled companies.

“It’s going to be a field day” for plaintiffs’ lawyers, said Ty Kelley, a lobbyist for the Food Marketing Institute, which represents the supermarket industry.

Consequently, some employers are re-evaluating their application procedures and job descriptions to ensure that they are not discriminating against disabled workers.

On the other hand, retailers and other consumer-service companies familiar with the law are confident that they can meet the public accommodations requirements--particularly when it involves something as basic as getting an item off of a high shelf for a disabled person who can’t reach it.

“It’s simply a matter of our industry doing something it’s been doing for some time--(putting) the emphasis on customer service and accessibility,” Kelley said.

Yet any company with a false sense of security that it is adequately complying with the public accommodations section of the ADA could be setting itself up for a public relations disaster, said Lotito, the management lawyer.

“If a company gets on the wrong side of the attorney general or a disability rights group . . . you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that it will have an extremely negative impact,” he said.

Advocates for the disabled say the main purpose of the ADA is to change widespread attitudes that lead to discrimination. In addition, they are hopeful that business will be spurred to more fully tap the vast market of 43 million Americans considered disabled.

Businesses that are slow to act “will say we’ve got to do something about this because we’re falling behind the pack,” said Gordon W. Anthony, a Los Angeles consultant who advises businesses on complying with the ADA.

Some businesses, particularly large companies, are actively making renovations and training employees to comply with the new law. Hyatt Hotels is installing strobe-light fire alarms for the hearing impaired and hand-held shower heads for wheelchair users. Southland, the parent of 7-Eleven, is advising store managers to use pads and pencils to communicate with customers with hearing or speaking disabilities and to keep store aisles clear.

For now, though, people such as Thomas W. Fritz, a wheelchair user who suffers from a form of muscular dystrophy that also impairs his speech, say they still commonly endure a variety of indignities. Fritz says that when he goes to a restaurant, sometimes the waitress--apparently assuming that Fritz can’t order for himself--turns to someone else at the table to take his order.

Or, when he goes shopping, sometimes sales clerks ignore him or get impatient with the extra time it takes him to check the merchandise. He also encounters physical barriers such as narrow aisles and entrances with steps but no ramps.

It’s these types of obstacles that Fritz, a 32-year-old Venice resident and part-time psychotherapist, hopes will fade with the help of the ADA. “There always will be businesses that try to find loopholes but, all in all, it’s a good start,” Fritz said. “People’s attitudes will change because they have to.”

Americans With Disabilities Act

The Americans With Disabilities Act is a major civil rights law that bars discrimination against disabled people in employment, public accommodations, public services, transportation and telecommunications. In general, it is broader than similar state statutes. An estimated 43 million Americans are covered, including people suffering from mental illnesses. ADA was signed into law July 26, 1990, and most its major provisions take effect today. Here are the law’s key elements:

* Public accommodations: Stores, restaurants, hotels and other public places of business must be accessible to people with disabilities. Although the law is ambiguous, businesses will be required to remove barriers where it is “readily achievable.” Otherwise, they may be required to provide curbside service to disabled consumers.

* Transportation: Under separate sections of the law, bus and train systems and privately operated van services must also be made accessible to the disabled.

* Government Services: State and local governments are barred from discriminating against disabled employees or disabled consumers seeking government services.

* Employment: Employers are barred from discriminating against qualified job applicants or employees because of their disabilities, including mental illness. Further, employers are required to make “reasonable accommodations” to permit qualified people with disabilities to fulfill the requirements of their jobs. That might include, among other things, restructuring a job or modifying a work schedule. For employers with 25 or more workers, the law takes effect July 26, 1992. For employers with 15 to 24 workers, the law takes effect July 26, 1994.

Sources: U.S. Justice Department, Society for Human Resource Management and the law firm of Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler & Krupman.