Thanks blog is thanks to Ken Besserman, General Counsel of the Texas Restaurant Association, who sent me this link to an article about an announced Department of Justice investigation of restaurants in Houston, Texas. Twenty-five popular restaurants will be investigated for ADA violations over the next several months.

This investigation is worthy of note for several reasons. First, none of the restaurants is the subject of any specific complaint. Instead the investigation was timed to coincide with a symposium of civil rights advocacy groups. This is a good reminder for all businesses that the power of the Department of Justice to investigate possible ADA violations does not require that DOJ wait for a specific complaint. A business thinking that it won’t be targeted because it seems to have no disabled customers needs to know that DOJ doesn’t need a disabled complaining party in order to enforce the ADA. More