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Paula Tejeda is hitting the streets once again
Update, 12:35, 8/18: While the plaintiff's attorney Thomas Frankovich says getting a $200 ramp would be easier, closing the shop
will protect Chile Lindo's landlord from damages for future incidents in which the disability lawsuit's plaintiff, Craig Yates, is denied access to the restaurant.
Yet closing down will not affect the damages for the past incidents cited in the lawsuit, Frankovich says. Chile Lindo owner Paula Tejeda "can do whatever she wants to do, and it will have no effect. She could have avoided it with the very minimal cost of buying a six-foot ramp from [
Prairie View Industries] for 180 dollars." Actually, in Yates letter sent Tejeda on March 16 to complain about not being able to enter the take-out restaurant (which Tejeda says she ripped up in disgust), he suggested she contact the company to get a ramp and provided a phone number. Frankovich says neither he nor Craig Yates has any interest in the ramp company.
As for Tejeda's
earlier claim that there's no room for a wheelchair to enter the restaurant, Frankovich argues, "I beg to differ that there's not enough room for a person in a wheelchair to go into that premises and order their food like anyone else, instead of being like a beggar on the sidewalk."
Original post:"The Girl From Empanada," aka Paula Tejeda, has decided to close her restaurant,
Chile Lindo, after her landlord was
sued by a wheelchair-using man for not having a ramp leading into the takeout eatery. Tejeda says she wants to save her landlord from potential damages of at least $1,000 every time the plaintiff is denied entry to the empanada kitchen with a six-inch step.
"This is not fair to my landlord, who's been very good to me," she says of David and Sandra Lucchesi. David Lucchesi didn't immediately return a phone message Tuesday night.
