Thread: Bill: Language barrier not bias

Published: 06.20.2009

Bill: Language barrier not bias
By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
PHOENIX — State senators took the first steps Friday to protect businesses from winding up in legal trouble for failing to provide translators for customers who don't speak English.
Existing law prohibits discrimination in places of "public accommodation against anyone because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin or ancestry." That category includes restaurants, hotels, theaters and any place that offers services or goods to the general public.
SB 1199, as unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would spell out that the law doesn't require any business owner to provide a "trained and competent bilingual person" to assist customers.
The legislation is the result of a problem incurred by a Glendale optometrist.
John Schrolucke told lawmakers that a woman speaking only Spanish came into his office. Schrolucke said the woman did bring her 12-year-old child with her. But he said allowing the child to interpret for the parent would have gotten him into legal trouble.
Potentially more significant, Schrolucke said he faced a potential malpractice lawsuit if the child did not properly translate some of the more technical explanations being provided.
So he turned the woman away, telling her through her child to come back with someone at least 18 years old.
Schrolucke said that when people cannot come in with an adult interpreter, he routinely gives them the business cards of two other optometrists who speak Spanish.
Afterward, he said, the woman filed a discrimination complaint with the state Attorney General's Office. It was only after an investigation and some time and effort on his part that the complaint was dismissed.
Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, who crafted SB 1199, said businesses should not have to fear they will incur the time and expense of an investigation or even a possible lawsuit because they haven't hired qualified people to interpret.
"He (Schrolucke) has been horribly maligned by the system, drug through the mud, his time consumed, his money consumed, his reputation put at risk," Huppenthal said.
Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, called it "outrageous" that anyone would demand services from a private business in a language other than English.
The measure now goes to the full Senate.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/297791

I guess this will go before the Supreme Court where Sonia the racist will overturn it making all businesses hire interpreters for any language other then English. That'll save us a lot of money...

They can NOT force us to use a foreign language. No freakin way.

LOL, in NYC every business would have to employ 87 interpreters...MINIMUM!