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              DOJ Opens Dallas Doors

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Business people and vacationers with disabilities
will have full access to the facilities in the Dallas Hyatt Regency
Hotel under an agreement reached with the Justice Department.

The agreement, signed today by Judge Jorge Solis in U.S. District
Court in Dallas, resolves a complaint filed with the Justice
Department by several children and adults who attended a conference
of the Spina Bifida Association of America at the landmark hotel in
June 1992.

The complainants claimed that the hotel's owners, the Woodbine
Development Corporation, and its operators, the Hyatt Corporation,
failed to make their facility accessible to individuals with
disabilities in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA).

"We hope other hotels understand the significance of the ADA in the
lives of real people," said Assistant Attorney General for Civil
Rights Deval L. Patrick.   "We are committed to enforcing the law
and hope that hotels and other businesses will voluntarily take
steps to make their facilities accessible."

Under the agreement the hotel will:

    make 28 guest rooms and suites accessible to people with
     disabilities;

    refurbish the hotel's exercise room and health club, and build
     ramps providing access to the hotel's hot tub and swimming
     pool; and,

    modify drinking fountains and three sets of restrooms on the
     first three floors of the hotel.

The hotel also has agreed to offer 24 people with disabilities who
attended the 1992 conference either a return trip to the hotel with
their families or $1,500 in damages.

Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination against individuals
with disabilities by public accommodations such as hotels.  It
requires that businesses remove barriers in buildings when it is
"readily achievable" to do so.  Readily achievable is defined as
without much difficulty or expense.

[Dallas Hotel Agrees with the Justice Department to Become
Accessible to People with Disabilities, DOJ, December 6, 1994]

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