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As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take its toll on retail businesses throughout the country, the phenomenon of curbside pickup has spread from coast to coast .  With some evidence suggesting that retail customers may continue to prefer curbside pickup over traditional in-store pickup for the foreseeable future, retail businesses and their landlords should consider the potential lease implications of initiating or expanding curbside pickup programs.  These may include dedicated parking allotments, use and maintenance of common areas, new signage, modifications to site plans, insurance requirements, and compliance with title, zoning, and land use restrictions, among others. The first and most obvious lease implication of curbside pickup concerns the use of parking lots and common areas.  For example, while a curbside pickup program may necessitate dedicated parking spaces, a retail business may or may not have negotiated for exclusive parking rights under its lease (...

For the past few years, retailers have been confronted with a tidal wave of litigation alleging that their websites are inaccessible in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Indeed, in 2018 alone, one analysis determined that there were at least 2,258 web accessibility cases filed in federal court, a 177 percent increase from the previous year. [1] Of these cases, a total of 1,564—over 69 percent—were filed in New York federal courts by just a handful of lawyers, including Jeffrey Gottlieb, Bradley Marks, C.K. Lee, Joseph Mizrahi, Jonathan Shalom and Doug Lipsky, with a surge following two unsuccessful motions to dismiss in cases involving Five Guys and Blick Art. While improving website accessibility is certainly a laudable goal, Tom Stebbins, executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York (LRANY), has observed that these cases “are cut-and-paste lawsuits that are not about accessibility but about making money.” [2] Due to a number of factors, inclu...