A long, narrow flight of stairs ending with a large metal door is the only path up to the Comedy Attic. Those stairs serve as a deterrent to those with limited mobility and other disabilities.
Jared Thompson, the owner of the Comedy Attic, and Michael Shermis, the special projects coordinator for Bloomington, are working to improve accessibility not just for the Comedy Attic, but for many businesses.
“Our point is to make it as accessible as possible,” Shermis said.
Shermis is in charge of a Bloomington initiative called AccessAbility Decal screening through the Council for Community Accessibility.
Shermis said the program is designed to encourage businesses to make efforts to be more accessible through incentives like extra publicity and the possibility of additional customers and tax incentives.
“We’re all about the carrot, not the stick,” Shermis said.
The program provides publicity through its newsletter and hands out a decal sticker for the businesses that complete a checklist devoted to increasing accessibility. More than 170 businesses in Bloomington are on the approved list available online.
The decals were designed by Joel Fosha and were donated by the Bloomington Moose Lodge, according to the City of Bloomington website.
The committee looks at several areas — parking, path of travel, entrances, stairs and restrooms — when reviewing businesses.
CCA is currently looking for additional volunteers to help perform surveys so they can speed the process along. Shermis said they have 12 to 15 surveyors who perform about one survey a month and the training is simple. The surveyors simply measure and label for the committee.
A surveyor measures and fills out the checklist, and the list is reviewed by the committee. Shermis described the Comedy Attic as completely inaccessible with its long, narrow staircase. Thompson said building changes are difficult because the structure was built before 1900.
The age of the building limits any changes that can be made, but Thompson has done what he can with a new device called an evacuation chair.
The chair is pushed or pulled up the stairs on a series of treads and was very expensive to purchase. The Attic was unable to get a chair lift because the staircase is about two feet too narrow. The evacuation chair cost Thompson about $3,000, and he and his employees have worked approximately 500 hours figuring it out, he said.
“It’s just a horribly ridiculous expense,” Thompson said.
However, Thompson said he could not imagine doing anything else. Thompson said he remembered his mother the year they opened and how difficult it was for her to visit the Comedy Attic.
“My mom wouldn’t have been able to get up the stairs,” Thompson said.
Shermis said the Comedy Attic and places like it, such as the Upstairs Pub, will never be completely accessible but progress is very important.
“You take your victories when you can get them,” Shermis said.
Shermis said he is very passionate about the program and goes out and does many surveys because he can do them quickly and he wants to make businesses more accessible if possible.
“It just feels so wrong to exclude anyone,” Shermis said.
