A disability support group will be able to dance again in its community hall.
The group, First Service, was told members had damaged floors with their wheelchairs and were barred from booking space at the hall.
When contacted by MyCity Logan last week, the managers of the hall said it was all a misunderstanding.
Cordial, they said, was the culprit for floor damage.
“They spilled cordial on the floor a few times, drinks and all that, and just wheeling the wheelchair through them was leaving marks,” Arthur Joyce said.
Mr Joyce is president of Eagleby Community Association Incorporated (ECAI), the organisation that manages the centre.
“It was all taken wrongly, all that sort of stuff with the wheelchairs marking the floor,” he said.
First Service says it has been using the hall every Tuesday for more than 10 years.
ECAI decided in November they would “no longer offer FIRST any ongoing booking”.
A letter to First Service said: “On previous occasions, your attendees have caused considerable damage to this flooring, particularly due to the use of wheelchairs.”
“ECAI cannot afford to repair this damage and we wish to prevent any further damage to the flooring going forward.
“Other patrons/hirers have complained about the state of the flooring and the stage and we need to consider their needs and requirements and as a largely self-funded organisation, we simply can’t afford to have our property damaged.”
ECAI also accused First Service of damaging the centre’s entry door, breaking a window, overloading the power and “the hall not being properly secured after use”.
Now Mr Joyce says First Service can again book the space.
“We’ve just got to change a couple of processes so that we can get around the problems we had before,” he said.
“The problems with damages were not damages from the wheelchairs, it was just damages overall.
“Our committee didn’t meet again from Christmas until the first Saturday of this month, and then we sat down and had the meeting… and worked it all out.”
First Service director Robert Galea described what happened as a “blatant act of discrimination”, and said First Service had not yet been informed it could re-hire the space.
The mum of a 21-year-old man with down syndrome, who had participated in the group since he was 16, said the discos were an important part of his life.
“My son has a hard enough time in the community just managing day-to-day tasks, so the little things he enjoys, like going to a hall to have a dance with other people with disabilities, he can’t even do – all because of a little marking on the floor,” she said.
“It’s a community hall – it is supposed to be accessible to all community members… so why is my son being affected?”
The mum, who asked not to be named, said she was “advocating as a parent” because it affected more than just the wheelchair-users of the group.
“It’s affecting the whole group,” she said.
“My son has down syndrome and autism, so he likes routine, and he likes predictability.
“To me, it’s community hall, so everyone should be able to enjoy the activities.”
