Debbie Goad has been reliant on Rooney, her Labrador cross retriever, since her sight worsened last year.Goodness gracious me, who doesn’t understand that it’s not legal to turn away an assistance dog?
The 46-year-old who lives in Coutts Avenue, Chessington, went into Pound Value on Tolworth Broadway to buy a frying pan on Friday, March 25.
But when she walked in she was approached by three separate members of staff who each asked her to leave citing a no dogs policy.
Manager Afshan Niawaz said it was a misunderstanding.Riiiiiight….
She said: “We have got a no dogs policy but if someone is blind we need to understand this of course.Well, it’s nice that you claim you will ‘let them in in the future’, but that’s not the point, is it?
“I do apologise and I’m sorry. I will definitely let them in in the future. I have served a customer who was blind and I let him in and I helped him myself.
“I feel really bad. If I can see her in the future I will apologise.”
It’s about time that this sort of thing attracted huge fines.
Now, that is what I call Discrimination ..
ReplyDeleteAnd not the usual namby-pamby, touchy-feely, multi-culti crap were forever having rammed down our throats ..
It’s about time that this sort of thing attracted huge fines.
ReplyDeleteHmm, maybe, but I'd rather it attract huge boycotts and column feet of bad press instead, and for it to again be legal for shopkeepers to admit or turn away who they like, disabilities and guide dogs notwithstanding. Personally I wouldn't want to shop in somewhere that did and would join a boycott, but a government has shaped the law to take the decisions away from everyone. Freedom necessarily includes the right to be an arsehole about letting dogs in your shop. It also includes the right for everyone else to shop elsewhere. No further punishment or legal power ought to be necessary.
It's illegal to turn away a guide dog?
ReplyDeleteSorry but I prefer property rights over minority rights.
I have to agree with Angry Exile.
It’s about time that this sort of thing attracted huge fines.
ReplyDeleteBut it is not going to happen is it, we all know what the mitigation would be and we musn't upset the ROP
According to wikipedia sunni muslims believe dogs are ritually unclean or najis. Shi'ites add non-believers to the list. (Which is nice).
ReplyDeleteAnother case of "misunderstanding". I hope that more assistance dog users will make claims through the courts under the Equality Act 2010 to stamp out such ignorant discrimination.
We have already seen Christian hoteliers v gay guests and there was another member of the ROP who would not let a guide dog into his taxi.And the 'Muslim friends' who were outraged by the extractor fan.
ReplyDeleteSooner or later someone is going to have to sit down and draw up a 'pecking order' so we know what trumps what.
Preferably before we are banned from eating bacon sandwiches in public.
Sooner or later someone is going to have to sit down and draw up a 'pecking order' so we know what trumps what.
ReplyDeleteIt's been done, Blueknight. See the rules for Victimhood Poker for details. Obviously that's an American deck and the cards will be a bit different elsewhere - here the ace and king would be swapped and read Indigenous Australian for Native American, for the UK probably the same as the US but perhaps substitute Asylum Seeker for Native American, both would have something else in place of Hispanic, and so on. Take no more than five cards to describe someone and you can instantly see who has their interests put ahead of who. So for example Muslim trumps gay or female but not gay and female, though if the Muslim is also handicapped they do outscore gay females by a point, requiring the gay females also to be destitute or better in order to win.
"...and for it to again be legal for shopkeepers to admit or turn away who they like, disabilities and guide dogs notwithstanding. "
ReplyDeleteI'm all for freedom to exclude someone for their actions. But not for the way they are made.
"Sorry but I prefer property rights over minority rights."
And this is where I'd have to part company with libertarianism!
"I hope that more assistance dog users will make claims through the courts under the Equality Act 2010 to stamp out such ignorant discrimination."
Why leave it to the individual? Councils like to wield this power, don't they? Let them do the enforcing.
I suspect, along with Pavlov's Cat, that they'd fight shy of enforcing it with some shop owners, mind you.
I'm all for freedom to exclude someone for their actions. But not for the way they are made.
ReplyDeleteRegrettably, yes, even for the way they are made. To be crude, if one is not free to be a cunt then one is not free. Nor is it just about property rights - there is also the issue of freedom of association. A law compelling someone to do business with someone else because they are a minority means they can no longer choose for themselves. And it can be used as a weapon, just as the other equality laws are. Want to bar the foul mouthed and abusive old boy from your shop? Well think again if he's blind, because he can always say it's because of his dog and sic the authorities on you. As Terry Pratchett wrote, just because someone's in a minority group doesn't mean they're not a nasty, small-minded, little jerk, and "Is it coz I is black?" can just as easily be "Is it coz I Is blind?" And it's all thanks to legislation saying you don't have a choice about who you deal with and how.
Expecting the force of law to create a positive right for one minority has a snowball effect and is part of the reason why Britain and other nations now all have huge human rights based legal industries. Look at positive discrimination, for example. You see it in the US more and I believe it's technically illegal in the UK but we've heard about ethnic quotas for British police forces and how it's not the same thing, honest, it's really not ;-) Two equally able applicants of different ethnicities for one job, you ought to be able to flip a coin or hire the one who supports a football team you like or use whatever criteria you need to choose between them (including hiring the one who is the same colour as you if you want) but a quota may mean your decision is already made for you.
This kind of thing comes from the same line of thinking as being made to admit guide dog users. Creating positive rights is using the law as a hammer to try and beat life into a level playing field for everybody, and since every use creates a dent that requires a dozen more taps around it all that is achieved is a far greater number of dents than there were before. And this makes things even worse since in the wider scheme of things it encourages the shift of rights from being negative, being freedoms rather than rights, to being positive, the property of the government, to grant and withhold as it sees fit. Why can't you develop your house without referring to the council planners? Because developing your property is a right, not a freedom. Why can you not buy a gun with which to defend yourself? Again, a positive right, and one that has since been withheld.
I certainly don't want someone with a guide dog to be denied service and I'm not defending the shopkeeper here at all. Quite the reverse since I advocated boycotting the business altogether, and they'd deserve it if it went to the wall. But experience shows that creating positive rights laws opens a much larger can of worms.