TGIFriday’s has apologized after refusing to accommodate a disabled teen and her trained companion dog, says the Suburban Chicago Daily Herald:
The manager at T.G.I. Friday’s in Wheeling told the Arlington Heights family on Saturday that the restaurant couldn’t accommodate Dawn even after Greenberg showed him her Public Access card, which explains the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Greenberg said they were told that since Laura already had someone to help her, the dog couldn’t be allowed in.
It’s illegal to refuse to allow a companion animal into a restaurant, and Mr. TGIFriday’s Guy should know that.
The restaurant issued a statement apologizing for the incident:
“We are very sorry for the terrible mistake our restaurant made. We absolutely should have accommodated our guest and her companion dog. We have contacted the guest to offer our sincerest apologies and we have re-educated restaurant management on proper procedures to ensure a similar situation does not occur.”
Amy Freshwater, spokeswoman for T.G.I. Friday’s, said Tuesday the manager had been replaced and the company will be re-educating management on the importance of ADA guidelines.
“We’re absolutely appalled with the situation in the first place,” she said. “This is something we’re taking seriously.”
Hey, what do you know? They’re taking it seriously.
Greenberg said she did not want the employee to be fired, but would like he and his coworkers to receive training, says the Daily Herald.
“He needs sensitivity training,” she said. “He needs more than just telling him, ‘You did a bad thing.’”
No kidding. What a jerk!
Wheeling restaurant apologizes after refusing service to disabled teen [Daily Herald]
(Photo:Mark Welsh )
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@EtherealStrife: That would be Epic Fail. You can’t FIT a donkey in some stores. You need a Service Burro or pocket pony.
@EtherealStrife: I once knew a girl who wanted to have her ferret as an assistance animal. I think she was serious.
I would think that after bad publicity TGIFriday’s would offer free gift cards to the family, and/or maybe say they were sorry by writing a large check to a guide dog foundation. How serious are they?
@EtherealStrife: Oh, don’t be an ass.
Ha ha ha! Get it? Ass? Ha ha! Good lord, I’m funny.
I’ve worked at the TGIF and this restaurant contradicts all the training I had there. As an SPG, I would have just sat them, no questions asked. And my my GM wouldn’t care either.
I haven’t seen any fully trained dogs act disruptive but there must be a training center near me cause I see dogs with the service dog in training jackets on–these dogs are friendly to people but do jump around a bit and get excited to see people (as most normal dogs do). However even while in training, these dogs are allowed in everywhere.
One time I saw this yellow lab service dog who looked miserable–absolutely unhappy. The disabled owner had posted a sign on the dog that said, “Do not touch or say hello to me!” The owner could walk but needed assistance reaching items on high shelves and asked a worker to help her. I overhead the disabled owner berate the worker and was just plain unfriendly and mean. I felt really bad for this service dog.
@rkm12: Well, ferrets are great at picking up things… Problem being they pick em up and hide them. Ferrets = Kleptos and ADHD suffers.
ok if we’re deteriorating into stupid jokes and puns I’ll admit I’ve been dying to point out that this story takes place in “Wheeling.”
@jamesdenver: It’s ok, I had a good chuckle at that and I use a wheelchair.
@spinachdip:
In practice (i.e. in court), the definition of “service dog” is very broad. There are notorious cases of service dogs who allegedly sense oncoming seizures and do….something about it; or dogs who “calm” patients, etc.
Courts have supported the rights of these folks to take their dogs into stores, restaurants, or the public library. IMO, that’s probably fair. I’d rather err on the side of the person who needs and is receiving some sort of assistance, and thinks a dog will help, rather than impose my own judgment from my able-bodied perspective.
Yes, some people wildly abuse the ADA by bringing pet dogs into restaurants, whether for personal edification or to support a lawsuit. But by this point, every restaurant or store manager ought to know the rules.
@muki-muki: I think we should avoid getting too hung up on the article’s use of the phrase “companion animal.” The reporter may have meant it generically without knowing it’s a legal term of art in the ADA interpretations.
Also, those who think that wheelchair users are setting restaurants up for ADA lawsuits need to know that monetary damages are not available under Title III of the ADA. Only injunctive relief is available.
@cde:
Were you joking, or did you know that there are miniature ponies that are used as service animals, for reals?
Check it out: guidehorses.org. They help visually-impaired people. They’re about knee-high, and they’re absolutely adorable.
@tmccartney: You would think a fact-checked reporter to have caught that (or the ones checking on the facts)
@clickable: Actually, I was just running with EtherealStrife’s joke, but damn those ponies must be a cash cow… *Inquires at opening up a franchise*
“He needs sensitivity training,” she said. “He needs more than just telling him, ‘You did a bad thing.’”
Why does the manager need sensitivity training? He treated them like he would have any other customer trying to bring in a pet. This dog is not a service dog, he is a companion dog. In other words he is a pet. Should the manager have bent the rules because the child is crippled? Pets are not allowed in restaurants due to health codes. The manager followed the health codes.
Companion dogs are not covered by the ADA and making an exception because the kid is a “poor cripple” is just condescending as hell.
I suggest the parents get the proper gear for the dog, if it is a service dog, so it will be recognized. Either that or leave the pet at home. Up to this point they have successfully bent the rules all over town, now they are shocked when they get called on it.
At the worst this was a case of a manager not knowing the law. I place that blame on corporate. (assuming it is a real service animal and not a companion)
At the best it was just a miscommunication because the dog was not properly “dressed”.
In either case the manager should not have lost his job. Nowhere in the article did it say the manager was rude or unprofessional. He just would not budge.
Assuming that the dog was wearing a vest (because the whole situation changes if not), this seems to be the major problem: The teen isn’t (apparently) blind, and most people think that seeing eye dogs are the only service dogs around.
You won’t believe how many times a hearing-impaired coworker is questioned on her hearing dog even though he’s always fully dressed in his assistance animal vest.
A relative who also has a service/companion dog primarily for emotional well being (she has severe panic attacks) is also questioned often. However, she’s never had a problem beyond lower level employees. I’m not saying he should have lost his job, but managers should always be trained in ADA policies.
So…it sounds like the guy lost his job over this? “the manager has been replaced”. That’s pretty messed up. So, she didn’t get to let her dog to eat scraps at the table, and he lost the means to support his family…
Sorry for your disability, but the manager is the one that got screwed in this one.
@Saboth: It’s not about “letting the dog eat scraps at the table”, it’s about having a trust relationship with the dog. She can’t talk, and whether the dog is a fully-certified service animal or not, she needs to be able to rely on that dog to be fully focussed on her and be receptive to what she’s feeling or signalling. That kind of relationship will suffer (which could lead to serious problems for her) if the dog is being left out in the car every time some restaurant manager just doesn’t feel like accommodating your needs.
(And I’ve never seen anyone feed a service animal scraps in a restaurant or cafeteria – there are mealtimes for the dog, and anticipating table scraps would be a massive cause of distraction.)
And replaced doesn’t necessarily mean fired – it means he’s not the manager at that restaurant. Maybe he got fired, maybe he got demoted, maybe he was made manager of a different location.
@Saboth: Try reading the article before making comments. The family didn’t want the guy fired. That’s a TGIF issue and “replaced” could mean transferred, relocated, moved, etc. It does not equate being terminated. As a manager, he should be trained on this stuff. Don’t give the family a hard time about this one because they didn’t make a huge scene, didn’t sue Fridays, and didn’t make this a huge issue. Other patrons left when they saw what happened, so maybe one of them reported it to the local news or something. Also, your scraps comment is flat out ignorant. Clearly this has never been an issue in your life or someone in your family or you wouldn’t have said something so blatantly stupid. Service animals are the best trained and most obedient animals you can find. Their entire purpose is to serve their owner. Giving scraps of food at the table isn’t good training.
@hexychick: Fired, demoted or moved. In any case this manager’s job has changed because he followed the rules and would not let a pet into the restaurant.
The dog is a pet, nothing more. How do I know it is a pet, just look at the article. The reporter was going for the pity angle.
We have bad weather:
“they had to trudge back out into the snow and rain”
We have lovable animal:
“help dog Dawn, Laura’s best friend”
We have helpless cripple:
“Laura, who suffered a brain injury a decade ago and can no longer walk or talk, uses a golden retriever, Dawn, to help her.”
What we DON’T have is what the dog does to help Laura. Why doesn’t the reporter inform us of that? Because the dog does not do anything extraordinary. Why doesn’t the article tell us why the child NEEDS this dog at a restaurant? Because she doesn’t.
Corporate rolled over on this poor manager because who wants to go up against a cripple at Christmas time. The manager did get screwed on this deal.
If the dog is a service dog then it needs to be dressed as a service dog. I will bet if the dog had on its vest there would have never been a problem.
@trollkiller: Trollkiller, one lazy reporter (or a reporter that is assigned the “human interest” beat rather than a “news” beat, and you’re ready to assume that a family with a teenager who has been unable to speak for 10 years is winging it with a big family pet? That they haven’t obtained a true service animal or had a suitable animal trained and certified? That they are just a bunch of lunks who happen to have the relevant informational cards but can’t be bothered to put the dog in the appropriate vest?
I think your assumptions in this case say more about your opinion of people than about what can be assumed from the article.
Assistance Dogs / Service Dogs are not required to wear vests, capes, harnesses, nor any other special type of equipment. Nor are these dogs required to carry any type of special ID. This is per the ADA and the governing agency the Dept. of Justice.
Many Assistance / Service Dogs wear plain buckle collars and regular leashes.
If in doubt that the dog is a true Assistance/Service Dog the management may ask the following 3 questions of the handler:
1) Are you Disabled?
2) Is that a trained Assistance / Service Dog?
3) What trained task does your dog do for you?
A trained task is one that is taught to the dog to mitigate the disability of the handler. It can not be something that the dog does naturally just because it is a dog. Giving comfort is not a trained task since that is something that we expect any pet to do. The task must have a reason and use. There is no reason to take a dog out into the public whose only training is to wake its handler up when the alarm clock goes off. A dog that has only been trained to pick up dropped items does not qualify if the handler is deaf but is able to bend down and pick up their own items.
A true working dog does not eat while on the job nor do they visit with passersby. They should be almost invisible while working.
The reason I refer to these dogs as Assistance Dogs or Service Dogs is because both terms are legal. The ADA refers to them as Service Dogs but since other types of working dogs may be refered to as Service Dogs (such as some law enforcement agencies call their K-9s “Service Dogs”) there are some who refer to those dogs who work for a person with a disability as an Assistance Dog.
@jenl1625: You mean an information card like this one that I found in less than a minute? [www.petjoyonline.com]
For just $5 you too can take your pet out to dinner.
I think your presumption that it was a lazy reporter not getting all the facts is a bit far fetched. Even a lazy reporter would have told us how the dog helps the girl. It is paramount to the story to prove how heartless the manager was. I think the reporter left out the information because they knew the claim the dog helps the kid was weak.
I try to base my opinion on what I can gather by looking at the whole picture. It would have been real easy to just to jump on the “hang the manager by the short hairs” bandwagon.
@AssistanceDogAdvocate: Good info. Thanks
Although they are somewhat controversial in some circles, here is some information on Psychiatric Service Animals.
@AssistanceDogAdvocate:
Meh. The first time I ever saw a service dog, the owner *SCREAMED* bloody murder and then yelled at me for ten minutes after I reached to pet it. So they can screw themselves, quite frankly. I’ve seen plenty of disabled people with service animals act in the same asinine way toward others since then.
Most of us don’t come into daily contact with them, so we don’t know anything about them. A simple “HEY! Don’t do that! He/She’s a service animal” would suffice, but instead people get treated to a long, drawn-out, loud lecture that just embarrases and angers them.
I have plenty of sympathy for the disabled, but not when they act stupid. I’ve had so many of them chastise me for holding doors, offering to give them a hand with ramps, and other things I’d offer to do for even a… ‘normally-abled’ older person or anyone with an injury that requires crutches…
That said, it *appears* that everything was in order here but, unfortunately, I can’t simply assume that the family was very calm and explained the animal’s presence.
@RvLeshrac: I have had the same type of problem with a few “chip on the shoulder” handicap folks. I found the best thing to do is tell them to STFU just like I would any other person.
@RvLeshrac:
“and then yelled at me for ten minutes after I reached to pet it.”
It gets very frustrating for a PWD to have to tell people not to touch their dog, but there is no reason for someone to throw such a bad display of temper. An Assistant/Service Dog should never be spoken to, petted, or given something to eat without the direct permission of their handler. If the dog responds to someone such as sniffing at offered food, walking toward someone who calls it, or stopping for a pet, it must then be corrected by the handler at once.
While taking out dogs into the public for various training, proofing, or reworking, it is shocking at how a great many people respond. Some dogs wear capes or vests which clearly state that they are not to be petted, but there always seems to be someone that thinks they are exempt from this. Older teen boys and young men are the worse in showing off to their peers by barking at a working dog. I’m not sure why, but they seem to think it is a macho thing to bark at and tease the dogs. Parents will send their young children over to pet the cute doggie without a care that a child should never be encouraged to go pet any strange dog for their own safety. Assistant/Service Dogs are kicked at or have shopping carts run into them because someone doesn’t think they should be present.
Yes, a PWD does sometimes face many frustrations when out in public. Sometimes it seems to them to be an endless battle in protecting their dog from people who at the least may distract their dog from its job or may in fact even try to harm their dog; but, a ten minute tirade against someone for just trying to give a little pat is way out of line. Please just remember that people with disabilities are no different than people without. There are polite and there are rude people in all segments of society.
@witeowl:
While the website that you gave a link to has a vast amount of great info there are a few points that many in the SD world, most especially the PSD world, do not agree with. There are some items that are on the trained task list such as hugging and snuggling that are not agreed with by many others, myself included. We look at these as benefits of owning a loving soft pet and would like to see these removed from several often referred to task lists since a dog does this by nature of just being a dog. There is no training involved in a pet allowing you to love on it.
Currently the ADA of 1990 is being looked at by a group in Congress for possible updating. Some of the items under consideration are to clarify the terms that have come into use since the Act was signed well over a decade ago and also some clarification on trained tasks.
As a former reporter, I hate to tell you this, but most newspapers don’t have dedicated “Fact checkers.”
Maybe the biggest ones do, but I really doubt the local paper in Wheeling, West Virginia does.
I don’t know the difference between a pet and a companion animal, but I would be inclined to give someone in a wheelchair the benefit of a doubt. (Especially since the employee’s statement about how the girl “already had someone to help her” indicated that the employee also believed that the service dog helped her, as the extra people would have been irrelevant otherwise.)
According to the ex-TGI Fridays employee who posted upthread, the manager violated company policy.
End of story.
CC
@chalicechick:
“I don’t know the difference between a pet and a companion animal, but I would be inclined to give someone in a wheelchair the benefit of a doubt. “
Many working and even non-working dog people for that matter, look at the term “Companion Dog” as just another way to say pet dog. The mix-up comes from some agencies using the term “Trained Companion Dog” to mean a dog that has been given basic household obedience and also a task or two to help someone out. A trained companion dog can be of use to say an elderly owner who has trouble bending down to pick up a dropped item or possibly trained to go to an item such as a cordless phone or the TV remote and bring it back to the owner. Since these owners are not disabled under the guidelines of the ADA their dogs are not nor will they ever be an Assistant/Service Dog. These owners do not have Public Access rights with their dogs and are not able to take them anywhere that any other well behaved pet dog is not allowed. These trained companion dogs are nothing more then pets who have had more then normal pet training put on them.
Now we come to the part that really can cause a problem with how terms are used and people’s understanding of these terms. We come to the “Skilled Companion Dog”.
A quote from the website of the agency, Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), that trained this particular dog: “Sometimes the partnership involves a parent, spouse, aide or partner. These helpers, called facilitators, are also involved in the Team Training process, so that they can learn handling skills and concepts along with the student. These teams are called Skilled Companion Teams.”
CCI themselves make a distinct division between their Service Dogs and their Skilled Companion Dogs. One of their requirements in which program to enter into is summed up with this quote: “Individuals must be at least 15 years old to apply for the Service Team program and at least 5 years old to apply for the Skilled Companion program.” They also have a place on their application for a Service Dog where the name of someone who could be a facilitator for their team is to be listed. This is for candidates for a dog who may even be over the age of 15 as in their words, “CCI can help determine whether a facilitator may be necessary.”
These are some of the things that we hope can be clarified by additions to the ADA of 1990. If the professionals in the field and the handlers of the dogs are in major disagreement over what different terms mean and what is covered under the ADA and the later messages from the Dept. of Justice, you can see how it is more perplexing for business owners and the average person in the community.
@chalicechick: As a reporter would you have omitted what the dog does to help the girl?
Given that the representatives have admitted that what the manager did was wrong even if it was a “companion” dog*, I don’t see how it’s relevant.
And even if I did write that, my editor might have cut it out if HE didn’t think it was relevant. (Reporters and editors disagree on relevance frequently, particularly when the editor is cutting details because he has to fit the story into a certain amount of space.)
Also, if I had asked and the answer was “Oh, the dog doesn’t physically help me, I just like to have her around,” I would have written that. Because it would make people like you indignant and outraged and indignance and outrage sells papers and makes the publisher happy.
Now had TGI Fridays made the argument that it wasn’t a service animal so they were justified in not letting it in, I would certainly have written about exactly what the dog did, because then the question of whether or not the dog is a service animal is relevant. (Though I would have also asked why the fact that the disabled girl “already had someone to help her” mattered unless the dog would be helping her otherwise.)
CC
who just noticed that the story took place in Wheeling, IL, not Wheeling, WV. Either way, no paper with the word “suburban” in its title has dedicated “fact checkers.”
*Also, I doubt I would have had the foresight to look up the subtleties of what constitutes a companion animal, service animal, etc, particularly since, again, both sides have agreed that it was a violation of company policy whether or not the dog was merely a companion animal.
@chalicechick: Clarification:
By “it was a violation of company policy” I mean “Not accomodating the girl and her dog” was a violation of company policy.
@ASSISTANCEDOGADVOCATE Certainly many disagree with much of what’s there. That’s what makes it controversial.
OTOH, with a close relative who suffers panic attacks in such a way that her major life activities were significantly affected, I have to say that having a trained service dog can be a significant factor in regaining some sort of “normalcy” for people wth psychiatric disabilities. The fact that her dog’s primary function is to give comfort, because she’s otherwise fairly ablebodied, should not be cause to deny her access to a necessary support.
The purpose of the ADA is to allow people with disabilities to live typical lives, as much as possible. I don’t believe that that is limited to people with physical impairments.
Regardless of the wank, the fact remains that the staff of a restaurant are likely not trained or qualified to assess the support needs of the disabled, nor accept the burden of liability should something go comically/tragically wrong as a result of their assessments. And that’s likely why the TGI manager was fired.
@witeowl:
“I don’t believe that that is limited to people with physical impairments.”
No, neither do I. Two of my best friends have working PSDs. I only stated that many of us do not believe that a dog licking the handler or allowing itself to be hugged should be on a trained task list. There is no training involved in these activities. To be a true Service Dog they must be trained to mitigate their partner’s psychiatric disability. To stay in the guidelines of the ADA and the DOJ the dog must perform a task (trained, not something the dog does naturally such as licking its owner) that the human partner can not do for themself in a major life function.
Some things that PSDs can do for their handlers, and this list is just from people that I know, is bring medication and a bottle of water when the handler is unable to function and get their own, alert the owner when the owner needs to quit what they are doing and rest or eat, help the human partner who because of their medication is unstable on their feet, guide their handler to a safe place when the person is having a panic attack, reassure the handler — by performing a check and coming back to the owner and giving a trained response — that there is no danger in entering a room or their home after being gone. These dogs may also be trained to bring the telephone or if the handler is unable to make a call press an emergency call button or in some cases go summon help from a predetermined person.
A Psychiatric Service Dog is a true Service Dog and as such must follow the same laws as all other Assistance Dogs.
@DanB:
“the fact remains that the staff of a restaurant are likely not trained or qualified to assess the support needs of the disabled”
So very very true. Legally the only person who can determine if a person meets the qualification of disabled under the ADA or that their dog is in fact a true Assistance Animal is a judge. So while a business owner or employee can only ask if a person is disabled and not what their disability is a judge may ask for witness testimony and documents proving the person’s disability. A business owner or employee can only ask if the dog is an Assistance / Service Dog (yes or no) and then ask what the dog does for the PWD in gerneral terms. A judge can ask for proof of training on the dog and then demand the dog to demonstrate its trained tasks on the spot. It would be at this point that a dog whose sole function is to stand still and allow its owner to hug it would not bode well for the owner trying to prove the dog’s status of a Service Dog in a court of law.
But getting back to the topic of this article, the manager or staff should have seated the group and waited on them as they would have any other group. They can not ask for any proof such as an ID on the dog or a certificate stating that the dog is an Assistance Dog. They can not decide if the PWD is in need of the dog’s assistance since there are other people in the group. The law does not give them that authority. Their only concern should have been if the dog became disruptive or presented a threat to staff or customers. At that point they would have been within the law to require the dog to be taken out.
@AssistanceDogAdvocate:
Yes, but the restaurant owner has other problems to consider. An animal in the restaurant can be considered a health hazard – a helper animal is, for some reason, not. Do you risk having lawsuits and losing your restaurant because someone decides to report you for allowing an animal in, or do you risk having lawsuits and losing your restaurant because you didn’t allow an animal in?
Unfortunately, the ADA does absolutely nothing to help this situation.
It is also, of course, unclear if the ADA has done anything to help anyone (with anything other than obtaining massive sums of cash) at any time.
[existingthing.blogspot.com]
It’s great that we have so many laws and regulations, but who is there to enforce them? Do you call the ADA Police? Do they show up and run over people’s feet with their wheelchairs? No. You do exactly what these people did and you have to be embarrassed and eat crow and leave. I think that I would have left as well…that’s just douchetastic!
In other news, when I was in Canada there was a woman with a cane and some sort of foot deformity that was complaining that the sidewalk we were on wasn’t ADA compliant. Um, yeah…we’re in Canada.
@sibertater:
((But who is there to enforce them?)))
There can be lawsuits, but mostly what enforces them is the free market. Recall from the story how some of the TGI Fridays customers got up and left. TGI Fridays corporate knows that appearing to be mean to a handicapped girl makes them look bad and people will eat someplace else.
And FWIW, in response to RVLESHRAC, health codes pretty much universally contain exceptions for service animals and even when they don’t, Federal Law trumps local law anyway. So that’s not at all actionable.
CC
@RvLeshrac:
“Unfortunately, the ADA does absolutely nothing to help this situation.
It is also, of course, unclear if the ADA has done anything to help anyone (with anything other than obtaining massive sums of cash) at any time”
The ADA is not an agencey or any type of organization. The ADA was a law passed by Congress, the American Disability Act of 1990. This law is under the guidance of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with responsibilites divided up between various Federal agencies such as the DOJ, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity (EOCC), the Dept. of Transportation (DOT), the Dept. of Education (ED), the Dept. of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), the Dept. of Agriculture (USDA), and others.
To speak with the Hotline that was set up by the DOJ for General Information & Technical Assistance or information about filing a complaintyou can call 800 – 514 – 0301 (voice) or 800 – 514 – 0383 (TTY).
@AssistanceDogAdvocate:
I don’t recall ever implying that the ADA was an agency or an organization.
Laws can ‘do things’ too, you know.