After President Bush is finished with his speech today, commemorating the 12th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, perhaps he would like to go out for a celebratory lap dance. Perhaps he could take along a man who doubtless shares his enthusiasm for the ADA. We speak of Edward Law, the paraplegic Orlando, Fla., resident who is suing Wildside Adult Sports Cabaret over inadequate access to an upstairs room where lap dances are performed. The appropriately named Mr. Law, who has also filed ADA suits against a local restaurant and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle shop, could remind Mr. Bush of the unfortunate side of the sweeping, intrusive set of regulations that his father brought into being so long ago. Mr. Law is emblematic of the flood of litigation and harassment that has sprung from the ADA well — a flood the law’s original supporters swore would not occur.

Mr. Law’s home state of Florida, in particular, has become an ADA lawsuit mill. Enterprising lawyers in the Sunshine State have taken to filing reams of lawsuits against small businesses for minor infractions of the Code of Federal Regulations — the document that sets out such things such as just how far from the wall (18 inches) the handicapped-accessible toilet of a privately owned business must be. In 2000, for instance, a 12-year-old girl who uses a wheelchair had lawsuits filed against more than 50 Florida businesses on her behalf — including a liquor store and a pool supply store — by a non-profit group founded by law firms that stood to profit. In such cases, the businesses are usually waylaid, never receiving any complaint or notice before being hit with a lawsuit. Not having the resources for protracted litigation, the business owners settle, not paying a cent to the plaintiffs, but getting stuck paying the lawyers’ fees — commonly around $5,000 a pop.

Reasonable fixes to the ADA, such as a bill requiring 90 days notice to businesses to give them time to comply with regulations, have been shunned by politicians frightened of upsetting both disabled rights activists and trial lawyers. This has left the Supreme Court to rein in the law’s excesses. In the last year or so the High Court has handed down a number of decisions helpful to employers, but business proprietors await relief from excessive structural regulations. The regulations imposed under the ADA are particularly onerous in a city such as New York, where a cramped real estate market prevails. While it is burdensome to build new buildings to ADA standards, it is even more problematic to renovate and refit existing buildings to such standards. The Duane Reade drug store chain ran into trouble last year when an activist group went to court charging that the chain’s renovated store designs, intended to wring every precious inch of space out of cramped quarters, made the stores inaccessible to the handicapped. In fact, business owners have every incentive to make their stores accessible, since more disabled customers mean more customers. This is why decisions are best made by the market, not by Congress and the courts.