Can A Business Ask To See Paperwork For A Service Dog

COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT

SERVICE ANIMALS IN PLACES OF BUSINESS

one. Q: What are the laws that employ to my business?

A: Nether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), privately endemic businesses that serve the public, such equally restaurants, hotels, retail stores, taxicabs, theaters, concert halls, and sports facilities, are prohibited from discriminating against individuals with disabilities. The ADA requires these businesses to allow people with disabilities to bring their service animals onto business premises in whatsoever areas customers are generally allowed.

ii. Q: What is a service animal?

A: The ADA defines a service animal as any guide dog, signal domestic dog, or other animate being individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability. If they see this definition, animals are considered service animals nether the ADA regardless of whether they have been licensed or certified by a state or local authorities.

Service animals perform some of the functions and tasks that the individual with a disability cannot perform for him or herself. Guide dogs are 1 type of service animal, used past some individuals who are blind. This is the blazon of service animal with which most people are familiar. Just at that place are service animals that assist persons with other kinds of disabilities in their twenty-four hour period-to-solar day activities. Some examples include:

_ Alerting persons with hearing impairments to sounds.

_ Pulling wheelchairs or carrying and picking up things for persons with mobility impairments.

_ Assisting persons with mobility impairments with residue.

A service animate being is not a pet.

3. Q: How can I tell if an beast is really a service animate being and non but a pet?

A: Some, simply not all, service animals wearable special collars and harnesses. Some, but not all, are licensed or certified and take identification papers. If y'all are non certain that an creature is a service animal, you may ask the person who has the animal if it is a service beast required because of a disability. Nevertheless, an individual who is going to a eating house or theater is not likely to be carrying documentation of his or her medical status or disability. Therefore, such documentation by and large may not be required equally a status for providing service to an individual accompanied by a service beast. Although a number of states have programs to certify service animals, you lot may not insist on proof of state certification before permitting the service beast to back-trail the person with a disability.

4. Q: What must I do when an private with a service animal comes to my business?

A: The service beast must exist permitted to accompany the private with a disability to all areas of the facility where customers are normally allowed to go. An individual with a service animal may non be segregated from other customers.

5. Q: I take ever had a clearly posted "no pets" policy at my institution. Do I still take to allow service animals in?

A: Yeah. A service animate being is not a pet. The ADA requires you to modify your "no pets" policy to permit the utilise of a service animal past a person with a disability. This does not mean you must carelessness your "no pets" policy altogether only simply that you must make an exception to your full general dominion for service animals.

6. Q: My county health department has told me that but a guide dog has to be admitted. If I follow those regulations, am I violating the ADA?

A: Yeah, if you turn down to admit any other type of service animal on the basis of local health department regulations or other state or local laws. The ADA provides greater protection for individuals with disabilities and so information technology takes priority over the local or state laws or regulations.

vii. Q: Can I charge a maintenance or cleaning fee for customers who bring service animals into my business?

A: No. Neither a eolith nor a surcharge may be imposed on an individual with a disability as a condition to allowing a service animal to accompany the individual with a disability, even if deposits are routinely required for pets. However, a public adaptation may charge its customers with disabilities if a service animal causes damage so long as it is the regular practice of the entity to charge non-disabled customers for the same types of damages. For example, a hotel tin charge a guest with a disability for the toll of repairing or cleaning article of furniture damaged by a service fauna if information technology is the hotel'south policy to charge when not-disabled guests cause such damage.

8. Q: I operate a private taxicab and I don't want animals in my taxi; they olfactory property, shed hair and sometimes take "accidents." Am I violating the ADA if I refuse to pick up someone with a service animal?

A: Aye. Taxicab companies may not refuse to provide services to individuals with disabilities. Private taxicab companies are also prohibited from charging college fares or fees for transporting individuals with disabilities and their service animals than they charge to other persons for the same or equivalent service.

9. Q: Am I responsible for the animal while the person with a disability is in my business?

A: No. The care or supervision of a service animal is solely the responsibility of his or her owner. You are non required to provide intendance or nutrient or a special location for the animal.

10. Q: What if a service fauna barks or growls at other people, or otherwise acts out of control?

A: You may exclude any animal, including a service creature, from your facility when that animal's beliefs poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others. For example, any service animal that displays vicious behavior towards other guests or customers may be excluded. You may not make assumptions, withal, near how a particular brute is probable to behave based on your past experience with other animals. Each situation must be considered individually.

Although a public adaptation may exclude whatsoever service brute that is out of control, it should give the individual with a inability who uses the service animal the pick of continuing to savor its goods and services without having the service animate being on the premises.

11. Q: Can I exclude an animal that doesn't actually seem dangerous but is confusing to my business?

A: There may be a few circumstances when a public accommodation is not required to conform a service animate being--that is, when doing then would result in a primal amending to the nature of the business. Mostly, this is non likely to occur in restaurants, hotels, retail stores, theaters, concert halls, and sports facilities. But when it does, for example, when a dog barks during a motion-picture show, the animal can exist excluded.

If you take further questions near service animals or other requirements of the ADA, you may call the U.South. Section of Justice's cost-free ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 (vocalization) or 800-514-0383 (TDD).

July 1996
Reproduction of this certificate is encouraged.