A blind artist and his guide dog were kicked out of a Seattle restaurant after a staff member accused the customer of faking blindness.
Paul Castle, who is legally blind, claims he entered the unnamed eatery with his service dog Mr Maple, but was immediately confronted by a wary staff member.
“As soon as I walked in with my guide dog, Maple, someone ran up to me and said, ‘No pets, service dogs only,'” she said. Castle said in a TikTok. Posted on May 7th.
“I said, ‘OK, he’s a service dog,'” the author said. “He looked at me, he looked at Maple, and he said, ‘An emotional support dog?'”
According to WAFB:Castle’s eyesight is less than 10 percent.
He claimed Maple was a “guide dog” and showed the worker a harness designed for dogs.
Castle told the employee he was blind, but the man didn’t believe Castle’s story.
“You don’t look blind,” the man said, to which Castle explained that “many people in the blind community still have some sight.”
“You’re looking straight at me.” “Yes, but it’s like I have a pinhole in my vision and that’s all I can see.”
Castle described his vision as “like looking through a straw. I have no peripheral vision and the rest of my vision is full of noise.”
“Look, this isn’t the first time this has happened,” the man reportedly said.
Castle offered to return with Maple’s documents, but the employee threatened to call police if he “set foot in this restaurant again.”
Castle and her husband Matthew run a TikTok account called “Matthew and Paul” which has more than 2.1 million followers and was created to give viewers a glimpse into life as a blind person and to spread awareness about blindness.
“I was speechless and shaking,” Castle told the outlet. “I was really upset and disappointed.”
“To go through a situation where I’m completely rejected, not just because of my dog, but because they didn’t believe me about my disability, it just makes me really sad on top of all the struggles I already have,” Castle said.
Federal law prohibits It ensures that private businesses that offer goods and services do not discriminate against people with disabilities, including people who require service animals.
The goal of Title 3 of the Americans with Disabilities Act is to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to goods and services.
The law also prohibits businesses from asking for documentation, and does not require animals to wear vests or harnesses indicating they are trained for a particular service.
According to the ADA, to distinguish between service animals and pets, businesses can ask two questions when people with animals enter a place of public accommodation:
- Do they need the animal because they have a disability?
- What jobs or tasks are the animals trained to perform?
Castle, who has not taken legal action, declined to name the restaurants he was evicted from because he didn’t want to incur any backlash.
He shared his experience for educational purposes, and after the video went viral, he contacted the restaurant and spoke with the manager, who offered a sincere apology and promised to better train employees.
