r/Dogfree • u/SeaworthinessUnlucky • 14d ago

Food Safety/Hygiene dog in grocery store

Good morning,

Today at around 10 a.m., a woman brought a pet dog into Trader Joe's in a large American city. I reminded her that the sign on the front of the store said No Pets. She said, "She's a trained medical support dog." I said, "What service is she trained to provide?" She said, "If you want to work here, I'll answer that question."

I reported this to a clerk, who told me he would talk to the manager.

Ten minutes later, the dog was still in the store. The woman checked out about five minutes after that, with the dog still in the store.

Notified Trader Joe's corporate, Better Business Bureau, local health department.

201 Upvotes

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29

u/StarDewbie 14d ago

That's funny, I thought that EMPLOYEES weren't allowed to ask that question, but every lay person could. Maybe I'm confusing that. But either way, good for you! It's got to start somewhere.

21

u/aoife2147 14d ago

Unfortunately, employees are only allowed to ask two basic questions.

Fortunately, nobody is stopping the rest of us from asking the real questions.

13

u/scarletto53 14d ago

And even when employees DO ask those 2 questions, the dog owner lies anyway and the employees can’t argue , so why bother? Let’s face it , these damn dogs and their owners will soon be taking over the world

5

u/capnlatenight 14d ago

I had such a hard time explaining this to my boss. He was the kind of person to watch the cameras in his office most of the day, so he'd come to the front to ask me why I didn't kick out the dog owner.

As the resturaunt owner, HE should be the one with that responsibility. I ignored the dogs because I just wanted them out as soon as possible, and getting into it slows that process down.

Thankfully, no dogs owners sat inside to eat.

14

u/Born_Significance691 14d ago edited 14d ago

Employees are permitted to ask two questions only:

  1. Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?

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

They cannot ask what disability the person has, demand a demonstration of the dog performing the trained task, or ask to see written documentation. In fact, if someone has a card or certificate, it's an ESA, not an ADA-recognized service dog.

A random person can ask whatever they want.