With its Blue Bottle coffee and startup-chic aesthetic, luxury transit company Leap’s buses offer white-collar workers a comfortable cocoon to protect them from the unpleasantries of the daily commute.

But that luxury is available only to some, a complaint filed last month with the Department of Justice alleges. It says that in failing to make its buses accessible to wheelchairs, Leap has discriminated against disabled people and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Furthermore, the complaint alleges, the San Francisco startup actually purchased wheelchair-accessible buses only to remove the standard-issue ramps and fold-up seats. By checking the paper trail, The Chronicle determined that at least four Leap buses featured wheelchair accommodations before they were sold to the startup.

The spaces once reserved for wheelchairs now feature bar-style seating and plush leather armchairs.

“This is a step backwards,” said Chris Pangilinan, 32, the former transportation engineer for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency who filed the complaint. Pangilinan, who recently relocated for a job with the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has cerebral palsy and has used a wheelchair for nearly his entire life.

“If they had put up a sign that said 'no whites’ or something like that there would be national outrage,” he said. “This is the same kind of violation. There just aren’t as many people affected.”

Leap launched a version of its service in 2013, but then went on hiatus and relaunched last month. The company, which has raised $2.5 million in venture capital, runs one route from the Marina to the Financial District during morning and evening commutes. Each fare is $6 and an app controls every aspect of the ride — from checking on whether a bus has open seats to purchasing cold-pressed juice once on board.

Pangilinan’s complaint hinges on a section of the ADA that requires both private and public transportation providers to make “vehicles and facilities readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities,” and repair accessibility features such as ramps or wheelchair lifts “promptly if they are damaged or out of order.”

The ADA is a set of wide-ranging civil rights laws passed in 1990 to prevent discrimination against disabled people. Its sections dealing with transportation are among its most important, said Marilyn Golden, a policy analyst at the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, a civil rights law center.

“The provision of the ADA that went into effect the fastest was the one that required buses to be accessible to people with disabilities,” said Golden. “People with disabilities had faced for many years significant hurdles in access to transportation. The ADA was supposed to gradually make that a thing of the past.”

It’s unclear exactly which, if any, ADA regulations apply to Leap.

The ADA has different rules for public and private transportation and distinguishes between private transportation companies and “private entities not primarily engaged in the business of transporting people,” such as hotels that run airport shuttles.

If Leap was considered a private transportation company, the law would require it to keep accessibility equipment such as ramps “in operative condition.”

The ADA does not include specific requirements for used vehicles — such as the four Leap buses purchased from a Southern California transit agency. The law was drafted so that older vehicles could be grandfathered in and eventually brought up to compliance or decommissioned.

But the law does not explicitly exempt used vehicles from accessibility requirements.

In a statement to The Chronicle, Leap said that its “understanding is that used vehicles do not have the same accessibility requirements as new vehicles.”

Leap uses four 2001 and 2002 North American Bus Industries buses sold to the company by the Riverside Transit Agency through an auction house. The manufacturer confirmed that the models purchased by Leap originally come equipped with a wheelchair ramp and interior wheelchair securement. A Riverside Transit Agency representative said any buses used by the agency would include wheelchair-accessibility.

The fact Leap buses were at one point wheelchair-accessible, Golden said, is a clear violation of the spirit of the law, if not the letter.

“Not only did they fail to maintain accessibility features, as they are legally required to do, they took them out,” said Golden. “To remove the accessibility features is the ultimate opposite of accessibility maintenance. It renders hollow the requirement for a vehicle to have accessibility.”

Leap would not comment specifically on whether the company removed ramps and wheelchair securements.

In its terms of service, Leap says it “does not provide transportation services,” and that it is “not a transportation carrier.”

But even if the company wasn’t classified as a private transportation company under the ADA, there is still a set of regulations that would require the company’s buses to be wheelchair-accessible. Transportation services run by entities for which transportation is not the core of their business are still required to offer disability accessibility on vehicles that fit more than 16 people and have fixed routes.

Leap’s website says it would like to eventually accommodate expanded accessibility.

“Our vision is for Leap to be accessible to anyone who wants to use our service. We currently operate a small fleet of buses purchased from public transit agencies that arrived in different states of mechanical condition. The current design does not include retrofitting for wheelchair access,” Leap CEO Kyle Kirchhoff said in a statement. “We’re exploring new designs and vehicle types to add this type of access to Leap as we expand to accommodate the demand from members of the community.”

A DOJ official said the agency can’t discuss pending complaints. If the agency finds that Leap potentially violated the ADA, it could send it to the ADA Mediation Program, refer it to a U.S. attorney or investigate the company itself. Pangilinan’s ADA complaint is not a lawsuit, meaning he does not have any financial stake in his complaint.

“This is deliberate, it isn’t some accident of fate,” he said. “I think they have a good service, but they should do it in a way that includes everybody.”

Kristen V. Brown is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kbrown@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kristenvbrown