Service animals: Should they be eating at restaurant tables?

Nobody notices when your dog eats off your plate at home. But it’s a different story altogether when it comes to service animals in public, at a restaurant.

While eating dinner at Pagliacci Pizza in Kenmore Tuesday night, Lance Muresan and his wife glanced over to an adjoining table and noticed two people and a dog sitting together in a booth — with all three eating food from the table.

Muresan told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that he pointed out the issue to the waiter, who responded that service animals are allowed on the premises.

“I told him that this dog was eating from the table,” Muresan said. “He said that it didn’t matter.”

Related: Want a new puppy? Seattle dog specialist gives Dori advice

On his way out of the restaurant, Muresan said he confronted the two individuals about their dogs eating baits – noting that he left his dogs in the car.

“At that point, they became incensed with me and began yelling and swearing at me and my wife as we made our way to our car,” Muresan said. “The lady in the red shirt cursed at me and threw her drink at my wife – just barely missing her. It landed in the street.”

Muresan told his experience to the Pagliacci manager, who Muresan said apologized and responded that service animals are allowed on the premises.

But does that make it legal?

Dave Johnson, a public information officer for the Washington state Department of Health, said the state’s policies line up with the Americans Disability Act, which says only service animals are allowed into food establishments and grocery stores.

He said it’s the responsibility of grocery store or restaurant manager to make sure two questions are asked:

• Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?

• What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?

“The key thing here, staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation or require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog,” he told Dori.

Johnson said service animals don’t need to wear a vest but when it comes to restaurants, bars or other businesses that permit food or drink, he says service animals are not allowed on chairs or to be fed at the table.

“Seating, food and drink are provided for customer-use only,” he said. “The American Disabilities Act gives a person with a disability the right to be accompanied by his or her service animal but covered entities are not required to allow the animal to sit or be fed at the table.”

Dori asked whether that means restaurant managers can use their own discretion and whether the issue at hand would constitute a health-code violation.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think that gets into the management of that restaurant.”

Service animals gone too far?

The Washington state Human Rights Commission’s law against discrimination includes provisions prohibiting discrimination against persons with disabilities who use a service animal to assist them with their disability.

RCW 49.60.040 defines service animal as “an animal that is trained for the purpose of assisting or accommodating a disabled person’s sensory, mental, or physical disability.”

The law states that service animals must be “trained,” but the training itself is not defined, and “there is no requirement that the animal have a certain type of training, that the animal be certified, or that it be trained by a particular person or by a person having certification.”

Those lack of distinctions can lead to a variety of loopholes. Most notably, that you can register any dog without proving qualifications or need online for $65. That kind of dubious leniency has led to a variety of oddities, such the “support turkey” on a Delta flight. The Air Carrier Access Act also allows for horses and pigs, as well as dogs, to fly as service animals.

Muresan called it a horrible experience and is sick of the “service animal” excuse.

“This ‘Service Animal’ stuff is a bunch of dog poop,” he said.

Dori, an avid dog enthusiast, agrees.

“This service animal thing is out of control,” Dori said. “I’m seeing people walk their dogs through the grocery store on a regular basis. We cannot have that many emotionally disturbed people in our society. These can’t all be service animals. I think it is a bogus claim in many of these cases.”

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