A twenty-year-old woman named Emma Donnelly was turned away from a restaurant in Exeter, England this week because the restaurant's management labeled her guide dog a "health and safety hazard." The restaurant continued to refuse to let her in after she produced a government-issued card confirming that her dog was a service dog and not a pet.
Donnelly, who is blind, has filed complaints with the local disability rights commission and the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association from which she got her guide dog. She states that the restaurant was nearly empty at the time, so she and her friends would not have been in the way of other guests. They ended up going to a different restaurant, where they were welcomed.
Yasmin, a Labrador retriever, is Donnelly's first guide dog. In the month since Donnelly got her, this is the first time she has been refused entry to a public place because of her.
Chris Dyson, a spokesman for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association went on record this week stating that their "dogs are trained to a very high standard. ... In most cases people don't notice they are there." The government card Donnelly holds even states that it is because of Yasmin's extensive training and impeccable grooming that she is allowed everywhere her owner is.
The restaurant's management has refused to comment on the matter.
The case was reported to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a British commission devoted to ending not only disability-based discrimination, but racial and gender discrimination as well. The EHRC is the group that published the survey on disability and bullying in the workplace last month.
(Related posts: Guide Dog Banned from Freshly Cleaned Cab, Blind Man Barred From Train)
(Photo credit: louisa_catlover on Flickr)
