Service Dog & Disabled Veteran Banned from Grocery

This forum is all about training and behavior. Everything from potty training to working titles!

Postby Marinepits » August 2nd, 2010, 12:04 pm

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010 ... 379790.txt

Disabled veteran says Big Y is biased:
Store claims service dog defecated several times

Published: Monday, August 02, 2010

By Luther Turmelle, North Bureau Chief
lturmelle@newhavenregister.com

Kim Mucha feels dumped on. And so does Big Y.

Mucha was banned from Big Y Supermarkets’ North Haven location last month after her service dog pooped in the store’s aisles. Mucha claims the ban is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Officials at Big Y say Mucha is trying to sully the reputation of the Springfield, Mass.-based company. A spokeswoman said Big Y has a record of fairly treating shoppers with disabilities at all of the chain’s 54 locations in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

“We must be doing something right,” said Claire D’Amour-Daley, a spokeswoman for the family-owned chain.

D’Amour-Daley disputes Mucha’s version of the events that occurred in June and resulted in the Air Force veteran from Wallingford getting a letter from Big Y saying that if she returns to the store, she will be arrested for trespassing.

The dispute between Mucha and the supermarket chain is being played out in the shadow of the 20th anniversary of the ADA, celebrated July 26.

Service dogs are permitted in businesses under specific guidelines set forth in the ADA. Mucha relies on her service dog, Ivy, for balance.

“They treated me and my dog like criminals,” a visibly frustrated Mucha said last week, with Ivy lying quietly at her feet. “My dog pooped on the floor and I cleaned it up right away. I’ve worked in supermarkets before, and I’ve seen old people and kids make messes on the floor and nobody ever threatened to have them arrested.”

Ivy serves two purposes: to help Mucha retain her balance, which was affected during an accident she suffered as a military policewoman while in the Air Force, and to pick up low-lying packages and items from the floor or shelves, a skill Ivy learned through the East Coast Assistance Dogs program, which has a location in Torrington.

Mucha is considering legal action against the chain, which has 25 Connecticut stores, including five in the New Haven area.

But, according to D’Amour-Daley, Big Y was within its rights to banish Mucha and Ivy from the store.

D’Amour-Daley disputes Mucha’s version of the story, saying Ivy was not anywhere near her owner, was not on a leash and defecated on the floor several times, including once in an area near where Big Y employees were making sandwiches for customers.

“We take our responsibility to insure the public health very seriously in the communities that we serve,” D’Amour-Daley said. “At the same time, we’ve worked with customers who have service dogs before without any complaints. We normally ask that they just give us a call ahead of time.”

According to Kevin Barry, a Quinnipiac University law professor, the ADA is designed to help people with disabilities to move about in public places and at businesses with the same freedom as their able-bodied counterparts.

“Not doing so is discrimination — it is a denial of access to people with disabilities by refusing to reasonably modify existing policies,” Barry said. “Under the ADA, service animals are not limited to guide dogs, which are used by some people who are blind.”

Service animals include signal dogs (used by people with hearing impairments to alert them to sounds) and any other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability, such as a dog trained to assist people with mobility impairments.

No advance notice is needed to bring a service dog into a business, he said. The dogs are identified by a green vest with a white-lettered “service dog” logo, Barry said.

“This is a sobering reminder of how far the ADA still has to go in achieving its promise of equality of opportunity,” he said. “Twenty years ago, the woman you describe may have stayed home rather than endure the embarrassment and headache of going to the market. Twenty years later, she shouldn’t have to.”

The ADA permits retailers like Big Y to banish service dogs only if the animal’s actions have “fundamentally altered” how a business operates, Barry said.

“Apparently, the only ‘business’ implicated here was the dog’s, and the woman cleaned it up,” he said. “Does Big Y send letters to parents of 2-year-olds who accidentally engage in similar kinds of ‘business’?”

Mucha said she was embarrassed because of the way the manager of the North Haven store reacted, yelling at her and summoning workers that “looked like they were wearing haz-mat suits.”

While D’Amour-Daley would not comment on the store manager’s demeanor, she said Big Y responds differently to the release of bodily fluids in the store than if a glass bottle of soda broke in one of the aisles.

“There is a certain protocol for cleaning up bodily fluids,” she said.

Call Luther Turmelle at 203-789-5706.

Never make someone a priority in your life when that someone treats you like an option.
User avatar
Marinepits
Proud Infidel
 
Posts: 15621
Location: New England

Postby TheRedQueen » August 2nd, 2010, 2:43 pm

Oooh...this is a tough one. :shock:

The grocery was perfectly within their rights to kick her out of the store...the dog was disrupting business, no matter how it played out. But...to ban her from the store? And to tell people with SDs to "call first"? That's not cool.

But if she's letting the dog wander and poop...that's not right either. :nono:
"I don't have any idea if my dogs respect me or not, but they're greedy and I have their stuff." -- Patty Ruzzo

"Dogs don't want to control people. They want to control their own lives." --John Bradshaw
User avatar
TheRedQueen
I thought I lost my Wiener... but then I found him.
 
Posts: 7184
Location: Maryland

Postby amazincc » August 2nd, 2010, 4:51 pm

That's one badly trained owner... :rolleyes2: :|
User avatar
amazincc
Jessica & Mick
 
Posts: 9814
Location: Holding them both in my heart.

Postby Marinepits » August 2nd, 2010, 5:23 pm

My in-laws live in the area and let's just say this isn't the first I've heard about this particular owner. :neutral:
Never make someone a priority in your life when that someone treats you like an option.
User avatar
Marinepits
Proud Infidel
 
Posts: 15621
Location: New England

Postby airwalk » August 2nd, 2010, 6:11 pm

These types of owners should be a very real and large concern to responsible owners of Service animals. There are more and more complaints and incidents where "service animals" are disruptive, biting and generally poorly trained and managed.

These folks are going to cause a large problem for responsible owners...it is only a matter of time.
User avatar
airwalk
I live here
 
Posts: 3791
Location: Oregon


Return to Training & Behavior

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Majestic-12 [Bot]