Door close button removed from the elevator at department store at the local mall.

A department store in my area at the local mall just recently removed the door close button from the elevator in the store. It used to close the door when pushed, now there’s no button where the door close button is supposed to be. Why did they do this?

WTF, I dunno.

They’re doing this here too. To all of them. They’re either taken off or disabled.

Take a moment to search on line and you will find several articles that say the “Close Door” buttons became useless when ADA was passed.


Most people do not have the patience to wait a few seconds for the elevator doors to shut, so they push the ‘close’ button to speed up the process.

However, some say this feature has been obsolete since the 1990s, suggesting the button is a complete fake – it will not close the doors any faster.

The Americans With Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, mandating that elevators stay open long enough for someone with a physical disability, such as on crutches or in a wheelchair, to make it inside, Karen W. Penafiel, executive director of National Elevator Industry Inc., told Christopher Mele with The New York Times in an interview.

Although these buttons are useless to the average person, they do perform their proper function for firefighters and maintenance workers – but only with a code or designated keys.

The local mall was built in the late 1980s, most of the elevators inside are pretty old and the door close buttons inside them work when they are pressed.