Some Restaurants Discriminate Against Service Dogs

I’m baacck! It has been a while since I’ve written anything for this blog. However, something happened to me that I just had to let the world know about. My wife and I were out doing a couple of things yesterday and I had my “Dog Guide” Murphy with me, as I usually do. It was past lunch time so we thought we would stop at a nearby fast food restaurant for lunch. The name of this place is Gold Coast Hot Dogs and it is located at the corner of Howard and Western on the North side of Chicago. The three of us walked in, and I heard someone with a heavy accent calling to me from across the room, telling me I needed to leave because dogs are not allowed in the place.

I asked to speak to the manager and this guy claimed to be the manager. I tried to explain that this was my service dog and I am allowed by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) to bring this dog in his restaurant as this is considered a reasonable accommodation. I have an ID card from the school where I trained to receive my dog. I tried to hand it to him, but he kind of glanced at it and said something like, “OK, whatever, but still you can’t bring that dog in.” He would not listen to what I had to say. My wife even read out loud the excerpt from the ADA printed on the back of the card.

Once again, this idiot would not listen. I told him to call the police, and he said that we needed to leave. He was not going to serve us. I called him a name or two and told him to “F” off! And he returned the greeting as we walked out the door. For what it’s worth, this fellow was speaking English as a second language. This area has people of many nationalities and some are not citizens. I do not know about that guy.

Well, we were still hungry, so we thought we would go to the McDonalds down the street that the three of us have been to many times over the past few years (not that we eat out that often). We walked in, and before ordering, we thought we would go get a booth and Murphy and I would sit down or so we thought! This time, a woman with a heavy accent told us we could not bring the dog in the restaurant and had to leave. I asked for the manager, and this woman stated that she was the manager. I explained to her about the ADA and that Murphy was a “Dog Guide” for me because I am blind. She was at least listening as I explained the law, and another customer near us was saying “he is right!”

She then went and made a phone call while we stood waiting. I do not have any idea who she called, but she came back and said “He’s trained right, he’s trained not to pee or something?” to which I said, yes, he’s well trained and keeps me from crashing into things, etc. She then told us we could stay, but did not give any apology.

This whole series of events really pisses me off! It irks me that these people from these other countries who most likely came here to the land of opportunity to have a better life have the balls to take my “rights” away by discriminating against us. I don’t like the immigration laws anyway, but that is a rant for another day. It’s hard enough having a disability and cope with things in general, but these foreigners need to be educated or sent back to where they came from! I am not usually prejudiced, but this kind of thing makes me that way.
Because of this enlightening experience, I am going to start a website where I can post the names and addresses of places that discriminate against people with disabilities and service dogs. I will start locally, and when I get the site up I will ask that people email me experiences that they have had and the names and addresses of businesses that have discriminated against them. I will post more information on this blog as things move along. If you know of anyone who has had experiences like these, please give them the address to this blog. The word needs to get out.

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Tags: ADA, Disabilities, Discrimination, Dog Guides, Service Dogs