Only in Brooklyn: Discrimination against baby strollers
Habitat
10 August 2017
Co-op says parents with strollers must use the building’s rear door.
A couple bought into a co-op in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a month ago, and
promptly began putting their baby in a stroller and exiting and
re-entering the building through the front door. Then one day, an
employee of the managing agent informed them that parents with
strollers must use the rear door. The couple reread the resident
handbook and found no such rule. If a rule is not written, does it have
to be followed?
“I find it hard to believe that a co-op would have a rule that babies
cannot enter the building’s front door if they are in a stroller,”
attorney Beatrice Lesser, a partner at Gallet, Dreyer & Berkey,
tells the Ask Real Estate column in the New York Times.
Such a rule could be discriminatory if it is not applied evenly to all
residents. For example, if residents are allowed to pull wheeled
grocery carts through the front entrance, why not strollers?
Regardless, the only enforceable rules are the ones in the governing
documents. So it is possible that the rule exists but is not listed in
your resident handbook. If you do not have these documents, ask the
managing agent for copies.
However, you do not need to go digging for answers. You could simply
continue pushing the stroller through the front entrance. If you
encounter the employee again, introduce yourself as a shareholder and
ask for his or her name and title. If the stroller rule is mentioned
again, request a copy to review.
Speak with other parents in the building and ask where they stand on
the policy. As a group, you could contest any such policy with the
co-op board, arguing that it unfairly discriminates against families
with children. And of course there’s always the nuclear option: filing
a discrimination claim with the New York City Commission on Human
Rights.
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