// HEALTH+WELLNESS //
Is Your Cannabis Website ADA-Compliant? If Not, Call Your Lawyer.
By Tami Kamin Meyer
When President George W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, a new era of civil rights for the disabled was born. New buildings were required to be handicap accessible and discrimination against the disabled was banned. And as of 2021, it also means websites must be ADAcompliant. But not all websites are bound by the ADA, only those considered a ‘place of public accommodation,’ according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Cannabis e-commerce sites fall into this category and retailers could face stiff penalties if found non-compliant. What is a Place of Public Accommodation? On March 18, the DOJ issued updated promulgations on website accessibility based on the ADA. The ADA’s requirements apply to all goods, services, privileges, or other activities offered by public accommodations, including those offered on the web,” the DOJ stated in the guidelines.” According to Indianapolis attorney Brett J. Ashton, many courts across the U.S. did not wait for the DOJ to issue its March 2022 guidelines to determine what constitutes a public accommodation. Some ruled an actual storefront is required for a business and its website to be defined as a public accommodation. Others continue to grapple with the nexus between a business’s physical space and its website. Meanwhile, the DOJ has issued comments which seem to indicate its hesitancy to shield commercial websites sans a brick-and-mortar location from discrimination liabilities. In other
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Cannabis & Tech Today // Vol. 4 / Issue 2
y and the ADA
Guidance on Web Accessibilit
ses open to the public can and local governments and busines This guidance describes how state ies as required by the accessible to people with disabilit make sure that their websites are Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). ents’ ADA responsibilities. ses’ and state and local governm
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Why Website Accessibility Matt
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denied equal access to that people with disabilities are Inaccessible web content means as steps at an entrance can exclude people just as much information. An inaccessible website disabilities is a priority for with web accessibility for people g Ensurin . location l physica a to moved online and years, a multitude of services have the Department of Justice. In recent For example, before for all aspects of daily living. people rely on websites like never es, and looking up up-to-date health and safety resourc accessing voting information, finding on having access to information increasingly depend mass transit schedules and fare websites.
People who are blind may use e the web in a variety of ways. People with disabilities navigat on a screen. People who are that speak the text that appears to screen readers, which are devices disabilities affect their ability captioning. And people whose deaf or hard of hearing may use their computers and other control to e softwar tion voice recogni grasp and use a mouse may use devices with verbal commands. ssary barriers that make it d and set up can create unnece The ways that websites are designe s, just as physical barriers like with disabilities to use website the difficult or impossible for people a building. These barriers on with disabilities from entering and steps can prevent some people and programs that businesses ies from accessing information be can web keep people with disabilit barriers these But available to the public online. state and local governments make people with disabilities. to le accessib are s website prevented or removed so that
words, not having a physical location does not mean a commercial website need not meet ADA standards. “If a business sells a product on its website, it’s a public accommodation, so the ADA applies,” said Attorney Jeff Lantz, CEO of Esquire Interactive, LLC, a social media and content creation venture. An ADA Primer The ADA is a civil rights law prohibiting all forms of discrimination against the disabled. It is divided into five sections, called Titles. Each Title prohibits discrimination against the disabled in different aspects of their lives. The Titles and their areas of focus are: Title I: Employment
Title II: State and Local Government Title III: Public Accommodations and Commercial Facilities Title IV: Telecommunications Title V: Miscellaneous Provisions Title III states “no individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation.” Furthermore, the Title prohibits any person owning, leasing, or renting a public accommodation to a third party from discriminating against the disabled. When the ADA was enacted, it failed to clearly state the guidelines for handicap accessibility. The DOJ published the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design to correct that. The standards led to revisions of Titles II and III, which went into effect in 2012. Seeking additional clarification, 181 businesses petitioned the DOJ for guidelines delineating how to make websites ADA-accessible in February 2022. The DOJ responded by publishing new guidelines on website accessibility on March 18, 2022. Still, bemoans Lantz, those promulgations don’t go far enough. One thing that was made clear is that businesses must “follow all laws and regulations, including the ADA,” he said. He lamented, however, “It is nebulous what it means to be ADA-compliant due to recent case [law] results and vague DOJ guidelines.” How to Know if Your Website is a ‘Go’ Fortunately, there are ways to analyze whether