Question: While eating at Ala Moana’s Makai Food Court, my family and I watched several people walk in with their dogs. These dogs were not outfitted with any type of service dog jacket. While one couple talked and laughed, their small dog licked the top and sides of the table. I wouldn’t want to eat on that table after them. We’ve been noticing more frequently that people bring nonservice dogs into restaurants, grocery stores and malls. I was at Walmart when a dog defecated on the floor. Isn’t there a law against people bringing dogs to these places? Little dogs in a purse is one thing, but a 40-pound dog in a store is something else.

Answer: Yours is a familiar, and growing, complaint.

Businesses — or any place “of public accommodation” — are hamstrung if someone insists a pet is a service animal and thus allowed to enter an otherwise “no-pet” establishment, but the behavior you describe does not have to be accepted.

There are “many more complaints than ever before” about animals being taken into stores and restaurants, said Francie Wai, executive director of the state Disability and Communication Access Board, emphasizing “many.”

The board currently receives 15 to 20 calls a week on service animals.

“Our calls are not always complaints, but requests for information,” Wai said. “It is our single largest ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)-related topic on calls.”

The situation you describe “is absolutely not uncommon,” she said. “I suspect that it will become worse before it gets better until the Department of Justice takes some action.”

We asked Wai whether there was any update to what we reported in 2011, regarding the Justice Department changing its rules and regulations on service animals because of escalating complaints. The answer was no.

Wai explained in 2011 — is.gd/Q5hEmf — that a public accommodation is not allowed to ask about the nature or extent of a person’s disability, but may ask whether the animal is required because of a disability and what task is it trained to perform.

Also, it cannot require documentation or proof that the animal has been certified, trained or licensed as a service animal.

Under the U.S. Justice Department’s rules, service animals are defined as dogs only (with a small exception for miniature horses), and they must be trained to perform tasks for someone with a disability, directly related to the disability.

Providing emotional support, well-being, comfort or companionship are not accepted as qualifying tasks, but there can be psychiatric service dogs for someone with an emotional or psychiatric condition.

Finally, the dog must be housebroken and under control of the handler.

“It is fruitless for us to enact any legislation more restrictive than the ADA at the state or local level because it would be nullified in federal court,” Wai said.

But an “establishment would be within its rights to ask the dog to leave based upon the behavior of the animal,” she said. “An animal is not under the control of the handler (as required) if it is licking the top and sides of a table and defecating on the floor.”

The Disability and Communication Access Board advises establishments “to look at the behavior of the animal and if the animal is not under the control of the handler, then they can ask that the animal be removed, whether it is a service animal or not.”

MAHALO

To Cheryl and Michael of Kailua for their kindness to strangers. On Jan. 9 we were at T.J. Maxx at Ward Centers to buy a chest of drawers. We live a four-minute walk away and asked the store whether it could help with delivery since we are senior citizens and couldn’t manage on our own. The store was unable to help, so I said I would pay for the item, see whether someone could assist us and come back later. Cheryl overheard the conversation and said she and her husband wanted to help us. They even carried it up to our apartment. May they be richly blessed as their kind act blessed us. — Mary-Ann and Arthur

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