Do Massachusetts Stores Have to Allow Emotional Support Animals?
We’ve all seen it: someone pushing a dog around in a shopping cart in the grocery store. While most people’s initial thought is about how cute the dog is, another thought eventually pops into your head:
Wait, does a dog really belong in a grocery store?
Well, if it is a true service dog that is trained to help assist someone with medical issues or disabilities, then it does. The Americans with Disabilities Act ensures that stores and other public spaces have to make accommodations for service animals.
However, what about emotional support animals?
Many folks have “comfort pets” that they bring with them to help deal with issues like stress, anxiety and depression. While personally I’d never want to stand in the way of people being comfortable in a stressful situation, there’s something about dogs in the grocery store that just doesn’t sit right with me.
Also, it’s highly doubtful that most of the dogs we see people pushing around the stores are actually emotional support animals, but rather just the family pet that they don’t want to leave at home or in the car.
In reality, aren’t all pets emotional support animals? After all, that’s why we love them, for the emotional support and unconditional love they give us. Do people really need to bring these dogs into the stores? Is it possible they’re just looking for attention?
The topic recently came up on The Tim Weisberg Show on WBSM, and while some callers defended the idea of having a dog in the store, others brought up why it shouldn’t be allowed.
“I do have a baby and it does concern me when I see people with a dog in the front of the carriage. You know, they’re not the cleanest things,” caller Christina said.
“I think at this point we are getting into a society where everybody has emotional support dogs because everyone has anxiety and depression, which I get, which I’m fine with, but I think that they should either put them in the back of the carriage or have them inside some kind of carrier of some sort,” she said.
Christina said she’s worried about how sanitary the shopping cart is after a dog has been in it.
“My kid puts their hands all over it,” she said. “I clean it either way, but just the way a dog’s behind has been on there and it was licking it and whatever else, I don’t know what it’s doing.”
App chat user LS in New Bedford also brought up a great point about allergies.
“What about my child, who has a severe allergy to dogs?” she wrote in. “What happens when they’re having an allergic reaction because a dog was sitting in the carriage they are now sitting in. Now I’m at the emergency room for four hours.”
“It’s totally selfish and unacceptable,” she said.
Here’s the catch, though: Massachusetts law does not provide for people to bring emotional support animals into places like grocery stores.
Legal resource Nolo.com says that “neither the ADA nor Massachusetts's service animal law covers emotional support animals.”
“ESAs are animals that provide a sense of safety, companionship, and comfort to those with psychiatric or emotional disabilities or conditions,” the site states.
“Although these animals often have therapeutic benefits, they're not individually trained to perform specific tasks for their handlers," it says. "As a result, owners of public accommodations aren't required to admit emotional support animals – only service animals or dog guides.”
In fact, state law only provides that ESAs must be allowed in housing rentals only because they fall under the category of “assistance animals” as defined by the Federal Housing Authority.
However, they only have to be allowed “if having the animal is necessary for a person with a disability to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the home,” according to Nolo.com.
“To fall under this provision, you must have a disability and a disability-related need for the animal,” Nolo.com says. “To qualify, the animal must simply alleviate the emotional effects of your disability.”
So bottom line: yes, your landlord has to allow for your emotional support animal under certain conditions, but the grocery store (and any other store or service establishment) does not.
It also bears mentioning that many of those grocery stores have signs up in the entry way that say things like "Service Animals Only" to discourage people from bringing dogs into the store, yet the people just don't obey the request and bring their dog in anyway.
My guess is that most store employees don’t want to have to deal with a customer becoming irate if they’re asked to remove the dog from the store, and there’s also the concern about infringing on their privacy by asking about why the dog is needed, so they’d rather just let sleeping dogs lie.
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