veteran+ wrote: ↑June 24th, 2023, 1:28 pm
babs wrote: ↑June 24th, 2023, 1:17 pm
Personally, I'd be happy if they would enforce the state law against dogs in grocery.stores. I brought this up to a manager once and he says they can't enforce it. That's completely false. They can ask what service the dog is performing. When it's in your backpack, it's not a service animal. A cat is not your service animal. Just yesterday I saw a sample lady feeding a dog in a backpack. Truly disgusting. Did she wash her hands? No.
Amazing, isn't it?
Things may have changed but in California the retailers (or anywhere food is) are encouraged to ask one question: Is that a "service animal"? (in a polite way of course and do not ask for proof) Most folks will say yes and corporate instructs you to say okay and that's it. If your business does not have recording cameras it gets tricky.
You must attempt to discern the animal's status to avoid a fine. If the customers are not truthful then THEY will get fined not your business.
Of course this does not matter because there are no auditors anymore to check. Businesses don't ask anymore and people are bringing their animals to food businesses of all kinds.
I have seen barking, dog fights, dog bites, urination, trying to eat food in the food place and defecation.
Quite amazing!
As the weather warms up this is an exploding issue every year.
I have seen all of the above as well.
However if the Health Inspector happens to be inside the business when the dog is there, then there can be a fine. Multiple businesses have gotten violations in my area and little more happens than some extra "NO PETS ALLOWED" signs on the front doors and that seems to be enough for the health inspector. It is cheaper to pay the fine to the health department than deal with a lawsuit threat because you questioned someone about their "service animal" and they now claim employee/management said things that they didn't say and there is no recording on the sales floor of interactions.
I have also experienced customers threatening a lawsuit and heard stories of customers being violent toward store employees/management for asking what function/service the animal being brought into the store performs. Most companies do not go there anymore.
In the case of Wal Mart it is a function of the greeter to ascertain if the animal bring brought into the store is a service animal or not. I have seen people kicked out of Wal Mart for trying to bring animals into the store.
One of my first experiences 20 years ago questioning someone about a service dog, and the person "offered to show me the papers" and I said okay (it was a different time 20 years ago), as this was happening the dog decided to pee on the floor there during that interaction. I've dealt with humans vomiting inside a store or just outside a store entrance too so I understand things do happen but in an effort to mitigate such risks my opinion is animals should not be allowed in stores, even inside the pet stores the only place they should be allowed is either the vet area or the grooming area, nowhere else.
I was inside some fast food within the past couple weeks and while I was inside a customer seated at a booth had their dog inside (no indication of service animal) on the floor under the table, and the employees even came out and brought the dog food/water. I am forgetting where this was. I was really disgusted.
Today in Sprouts I watched a customer who had a small cart (one of those Euro style carts) and I thought the customer was using reusable bags, would have been the only one in the store doing that, and had the bags in the bottom of the cart, which would be the right place for them (well, maybe not based on what I am about to say). But actually what was in the bottom of the cart was a small dog half asleep being wheeled around the store. Not on a blanket, not on anything. Literally directly on the bottom part of the cart. And again I watched multiple employees pet the dog and nobody said a word about if it was a service animal (again nothing on the dog to indicate this). This is not the first time I've seen dogs in this store but the other time I saw a dog it was in the child seat and had a blanket between it and the surface of the cart. The employees were friendly to the dog that time too.
I also don't think "dog friendly" stores like Home Depot do any favors to keeping customers in line regarding this. I get places like Petco or Petsmart allowing dogs inside... they are pet stores... so okay fine. But when other retailers allow it, customers just get to thinking why not everywhere?
More and more people are going everywhere with their pets. The number of pets on airplanes has increased exponentially in the past few years. More hotel chains are "pet friendly" than ever. The entire Hilton brand portfolio in the US is now "pet friendly" - before many properties were NO PETS but not anymore thanks to a recent initiative by Hilton Corporate to cater to more pet owners (another bullet shot at the business traveler by Hilton). It is getting harder and harder to avoid pets when traveling. The worst thing is a hotel room that obviously recently had a pet incident and they have gone and tried to clean up the carpet and cover up the odor but not done a real good job.
), sitting in the upper portion of the cart, with some kind of little-ish dog sticking out of it. I generally don't bother to say anything as nobody really seems to care to enforce the policy, but a supervisor happened to came over and saw and told the member that the dog can't be in the cart. At that point, I added in. 'and animals aren't allowed in the store unless its a service animal', and the response by the member was basically a yes I'm aware, but I don't care (clearly not a service animal). And that was the end of that. Management doesn't want to be bothered with 'petty issues'. I guess it will take someone being bitten by someone else's non-service dog or some other incident of the sort for anyone to maybe care.