By Howard Moscoe
I’m disabled. Like thousands of Canadians, as the population ages, more and more of us begin to function less efficiently.
In this article I provide information on some of the best places around Downsview to find these scooters, and some stores to avoid if you require a scooter.
In my case I have a breathing disability resulting from heart surgery, and I also have an ailment called ‘drop foot’. I am unable to walk long distances. You learn to adapt. I drive with hand controls and when I shop I look for stores that provide scooters.
You know, those electric wheeled shopping carts you pick up at the store entrance that allow you to zip around the supermarket like you used to be able to do. They are usually found at the larger chain stores.
Conscientious businesses that want to keep their customers have them, but unfortunately not all large businesses do.
I do my food shopping mostly at Coppa’s Fresh Market (formerly Highland Farms) on Dufferin Street, and from time to time at Costco on Wilson. One of the reasons I do is because not only do they provide scooters, but they keep them charged up, clean, and well maintained.
There is nothing that makes you feel more helpless than having a scooter give up on you after you’ve spent an hour selecting your groceries.
Last week I went into the Home Depot on Steeles Avenue between Keele Street and Dufferin. In the first place, their scooters are kept near the exchange counter entrance and you usually find them blocked by shopping carts full of returned goods.
They are in the same location in their Wilson Avenue store. They had two scooters. One of them had an “OUT OF ORDER” sign taped to the seat. It was the same sign I saw on it a month earlier. I dug out the second scooter, unplugged it, travelled the first ten meters and then it began to beep loudly and conked out. I ended up leaving the store as I wasn’t provided any assistance.
Just to be sure, a few days later I returned to see if anything had been done. Nothing had changed and both scooters were still
inoperable.
This time I did get to see the manager. He identified himself as Dominic and in response to my story was, “I’ll put in a service request”
Another customer told me that she had reported the same broken scooter to Home Depot’s head office a year ago and nothing was done about it. It’s kind of ironic that a “fix up store” doesn’t seem to care enough to keep their scooters in good repair.
If you experience any of these issues, I suggest you complain, sometimes it helps.
I once tried shopping at the Loblaw Superstore at Dufferin and Steeles. It has an east and a west entrance. The service counter is somewhere in between. I entered at the east entrance and asked a clerk where to find the scooters. “Oh they’re at the other entrance.” So I trekked over to the other side of the store and located a scooter but I couldn’t use it because it required a key.
“How do I get a key?”
“You have to pick one up at the service desk,” said a clerk.
“What’s the point of having scooters to help disabled people get around the store if they have to walk a kilometre to get one?”
I wrote in a complaint to the manager. The next time I came into the store there was a scooter at each of the entrances and each of the scooters had a key wired onto it. SMART!
Unfortunately, not all stores are as accommodating. The Walmart on Keele and Broadoaks has received numerous complaints from disabled customers. A customer, who had used a scooter to shop, was on her way to her car in the parking lot when she was confronted by a Walmart greeter who told her she couldn’t take the scooter out of the store.
To make a long story short the same incident happened twice even after the store claimed to have ‘fixed’ the problem.
This matter is now before the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
Hopefully all large stores in the Dowsnview area and beyond will soon accommodate those of us with mobility issues.
Have you had similar issues
while trying to shop?
Send us your stories at
info@downsviewadvocate.ca
