The seemingly endless parade of airline apologies continues apace today, with Virgin Atlantic admitting one of its employees shouldn’t have told a disabled woman she couldn’t enter the airline’s airport lounge with her service dog. [More]
service dogs
Man With Guide Dog Kicked Out Of Popeyes, Told ‘No Pets Allowed’
By 11.18.16 — Updated: 2.10.17
Guide dogs and other service dogs are not pets, and federal law protects their right to go anywhere that their owners are allowed to be. Yet the owner of a Popeyes restaurant in Brooklyn wasn’t clear on that concept, and used the “no pets” policy to kick a blind man and aspiring chicken-orderer out of the establishment. [More]
American Airlines Apologizes After Veteran Says He And His Service Dog Weren’t Allowed To Board Their Flight
By 9.22.15
American Airlines says it’s apologized to a retired U.S. Marine, after the veteran said he wasn’t allowed to board a flight he’d booked out of Los Angeles because he had his service dog with him. [More]
Yet Another Uber Passenger With Service Dog Allegedly Left At The Curb
By 7.27.15
Divit is a guide dog, who has been trained to keep his owner safe and independent and to have impeccable manners in public. Yet Divit’s owner says that they were left at the curb on their way to a vet appointment, simply because the driver assigned to their ride didn’t want to have a dog in the car. Even a service dog, which in theory is allowed to go anywhere that its owner or trainer does. [More]
Houlihan’s Apologizes For Turning Away Veteran With Service Dog
By 5.27.15
National chain Houlihan’s has fired a manager at a Chicago-area restaurant and apologized to an Army war veteran who says he was refused a table for lunch on Sunday because he had his service dog with him. [More]
Judge: Uber Must Face Lawsuit Claiming Discrimination Against Blind Passengers With Service Dogs
By 4.21.15
Months after the National Federation of the Blind claimed in a federal civil rights lawsuit that some of Uber’s drivers have discriminated against blind passengers by refusing to pick them up when they had guide dogs — and in one case, allegedly putting a service dog in a car’s trunk — a judge has ruled that the ride-hailing company must defend itself against the suit. [More]
Florida Lawmakers Want To Punish People Who Use Fake Service Dogs
By 12.16.14
While there are many Americans with legitimate needs for service animals, and who are legally allowed to take those animals into restaurants and stores where they would normally be banned, there are some people who exploit the service animal label without any bona fide medical or therapeutic need. Now some Florida legislators are looking to penalize these fakers with fines and possible jail time. [More]
Restaurant Kicks Out Blind Man And Service Dog, Gets Schooled On ADA
By 9.26.14
Service dogs are able to help people with a wide variety of problems, from diabetes to seizure disorders to blindness. Whenever there’s a controversy over whether a service dog dog should be allowed inside a business, we frequently hear that an employee told the disabled person, “you’re not blind!” Recently in California, though, a blind man, his family, and his service dog visited a restaurant and were told that Dogs Are Not Allowed. [More]
Starbucks Employee Asks Woman With Service Dog To Leave Because There’s “No Proof” He’s A Service Animal
By 9.2.14
Starbucks is once again making headlines for an employee’s reaction to a customer with a service dog. And once again the coffee shop seems to be in the wrong – and apologizing. [More]
TJ Maxx Store Orders Customer To Put Service Dog In Cart Or Leave
By 7.14.14
A woman was shopping at a New Hampshire TJ Maxx with her service dog when the store manager asked her to put the animal in a shopping cart instead of allowing it to walk on the floor. She refused, saying that the dog wouldn’t fit in the cart, and was asked to leave the store. Now she’s taken her story to the media, and TJ Maxx has apologized. [More]
Walgreens Ejects Customer With Service Dog: Were They Justified?
By 6.23.14
Over the weekend, a news story out of Texas about a man asked to leave a Walgreens store because of his service dog spread across the Internet. The important question is, should we be filled with righteous fury at the store, or at the dog-toting shopper? While asking the pair to leave could have been handled more graciously, the important question is whether the dog is a service animal at all. [More]
Veteran: American Airlines Staff Kicked Me And My Service Dog Off Plane
By 5.9.14
Many Americans legitimately use service dogs to help them get through life with post-traumatic stress disorder. The animals help their owners not by providing emotional support (they do that, too) but by disrupting terrifying stress reactions. This qualifies many PTSD animals as service dogs under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but some companies refuse to agree. Like American Airlines, which kicked an Army retiree and his dog off a flight between two cities in Florida. [More]
Another Ignorant Restaurant Employee Assumes That Only Blind People Have Service Dogs
By 2.21.14
How many times do we have to go over this? When someone enters a business with a dog and says, “This is my service dog,” the correct answer is not “You aren’t blind!” Yet a Texas Marine veteran says that he was asked to leave a restaurant because he brought his service dog in training into the establishment. [More]
Starbucks Employees: Don’t Say “You’re Not Blind!” To A Disabled Veteran With A Service Dog
By 2.11.14
People and dogs have been cooperating for thousands of years now. It’s our thing. In the modern world, it’s generally not okay to take your dog shopping, on a plane, or to Starbucks unless it’s a service dog trained to perform some kind of function other than being a fun pet. Not everyone knows this, which leads to some unfortunate situations…like the experience that a man had at a Houston Starbucks when he and his service dog were questioned at the door. [More]
Legally Blind Man And Service Dog Kicked Off Plane Before Takeoff
By 11.14.13
It’s bad enough being stuck on an indefinitely-delayed plane when you’re a human who can play with an iPad or enjoy a book or something, but imagine being in that situation as a dog. Even the best-trained service dog must get tired of being crammed under a seat. When one guide dog became restless while a US Airways Express flight waited to take off, he and his owner were kicked off the flight. [More]
Community Protests Restaurant That Kicked Out Veteran And His Service Dog
By 8.27.13 — Updated: 2.11.14
The owner of a Massachusetts restaurant thought that he knew what service dogs look like, and the terrier in his dining room didn’t fit the profile. “It just looked like a regular mutt,” he told a reporter. Not like the guide dogs for the blind or alert dogs for the deaf that most people picture when they hear the words “service dog.” He threw the dog and his owner out of the restaurant, prompting boycotts and howls of protest. [More]
Restaurant Says ‘No Pets,’ Tries To Make Iraq Vet And Her Service Dog Leave
By 10.22.12
Melissa is a war veteran who has post-traumatic stress disorder and is able to function with the help of a service dog trained to help vets like her. She and her husband were recently strongly encouraged to leave a restaurant where they had dined with the dog before. No matter what kinds of documents or federal government websites she showed, the waitress, manager, and owner all insisted that the dog needed to leave…without actually telling the couple to get out of the establishment. [More]
Wawa Pays $12,500 To Kicked-Out Customer With Service Dog
By 8.8.12
Many people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey speak highly of the Wawa chain of convenience stores. Which is why it was a bit of surprise to folks in the area when a man was kicked out of a store earlier this summer because he brought his service dog into the building. Now the chain has not only agreed to fork over a bit of cash to the customer, but to also make sure its employees don’t repeat the mistake. [More]
