Snowboarder: Ski Santa Fe workers 'deceptive' to disabled

Partially deaf visitor's complaint says employees not forthcoming about ticket prices

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican

5/12/2008 - 5/10/08

A partially deaf snowboarder said he got a runaround at Ski Santa Fe over lift tickets because the resort lacks a firm policy on how to accommodate people with disabilities.

Thomas Brown said he got different answers from different employees at the ski area about the cost of day and season passes for disabled customers.

"This type of conduct, playing games, being deceptive, or less than forthcoming and running persons around for no purpose at all is exactly what the New Mexico Human Rights Act has sought to address," he said in a recent complaint.

Brown, 50, said he is totally deaf in his left ear, partially deaf in his right and is certified as "substantially deaf." With a hearing aid and lip reading, he said, he usually can understand someone talking to him.

A construction manager with paralegal experience, Brown filed the complaint pro se — meaning by himself, without the aid of a lawyer — in state District Court on May 5. Named as defendants are Ski Santa Fe, owned by the Abruzzo family of Albuquerque; manager Joe Turiciano and Camilla Dejoia, manager of skier services. Turiciano declined comment. Dejoia was not available for comment.

The complaint, seeking unspecified damages and injunctive relief, said Brown bought a two-day pass Feb. 18 and put it in a holder on his jacket. Later that day, as he was getting on a lift, a lift operator told him to get out of line, he wrote. When he took off his helmet and put in his hearing aid so he could understand why he was taken out of line, he wrote, he realized several operators were speaking and gesturing to him to indicate he "had done something wrong."

After waiting 15 minutes in the cold, Brown wrote, a lift manager named Kent told him his lift pass was not attached properly. When Brown explained he had seen others with passes attached the same way, he wrote, Kent said these were season-pass holders who could attach their passes differently. Brown said a sign on the wall near the ticket window said passes must be securely attached did not indicate that different passes must be attached differently, but Kent insisted day passes must be attached with a plastic tie.

On Feb. 21, Brown wrote, he returned to the ski area and started to buy a season pass, but as he waited in line, he realized he had left his wallet at home. As he explained this to a clerk, he noticed a sales clerk named Cindy "glaring at me with a look of anger on her face," he wrote. "When I saw the look on her face, I knew, based on my past experiences in these types of situations, she had said something to me and when I failed to respond, she had assumed I was ignoring her."

Brown said he told Cindy he was hearing impaired, she apologized, asked what he needed and called over Dejoia. He said he explained to Dejoia that he had purchased a two-day pass two days before and a one-day pass one day before that, and now wanted a season pass. "She thought it was funny if ... I was planning on buying a season pass that I had been buying day passes and she indicated, with her tone of voice and the way she was acting that she thought I was lying," he wrote.

Brown said Dejoia told him she could not refund his money for the previous day passes, but that she could sell him a season pass at 50 percent off its $700 price and wrote on his contract "50% Adaptive."

Brown said he told Dejoia he would return the next day with his wallet to purchase the season pass from her, but when he returned Feb. 22, Dejoia was off and Cindy knew nothing about the discounted season pass. When he asked her if she would give him a day pass for the rest of the day and let him come back near the day's end to discuss the season pass, he said, she responded, "Haven't we done enough for you?"

"Her outburst was so out of the ordinary ... that I was shocked into silence," Brown wrote. He said another woman at the ticket office, named Lee, told him he could buy a "disability discounted pass for the day" and that he could come back the following day to speak to Dejoia about the season pass. He said he returned the next day with a digital camera to record what was happening, but this time, Lee ignored him.

Brown finally arranged to buy a discounted lift ticket from another sales clerk, but when he started to sign his credit card receipt, Lee "walked over and, without saying a word to me, brushed aside my hand with the pen and took the lift pass off the counter and stepped away, turning her back to me," he wrote. "I asked Lee why she had taken the lift pass, but she would not respond to me, nor make any eye contact, again acting as if I was not there."

After he waited an hour, Brown said, Turiciano, the manager, told him he was not entitled to a discount on a season pass, but that he could purchase another discounted day pass. Brown said Turiciano told him he would see if the adaptive ski department could provide discounted season passes, but it turned out the department only deals with people who are missing limbs, are partially paralyzed or who need physical assistance on the mountain. Brown, who described himself as an expert snowboarder, said he finally purchased a season pass at full price.

"I have gone to Ski Santa Fe for the last four years, three of which I paid for private lessons at full price," he said in an e-mail to The New Mexican. "I am unable to hear the instructor when I'm taking private lessons. While I didn't have a problem with that, and wouldn't have complained, it is quite another thing to find out as I did that the ski resort makes discounted services available at their whim. ...

"Absent a court order, the resort has no motive to change what is clearly a problematic policy."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.