Hi friends! I'm writing because I'm wondering how other venues policies surrounding comfort animals vs service animals work.
We have a clear policy on welcoming service animals. Our policy with comfort animals has been a customer friendly policy in that we allow patrons in with their comfort animal but let them know we may need to reseat them or ask them to leave if any disturbance occurs with their animal or other patrons.
The other evening we had a patron attend with what seemed to be a pet.. though they were adamant it was a comfort animal.. is there any way of obtaining verification of when an animal is a certified Comfort animal vs a pet? I don't want to have to change our policy to not allowing comfort animals in, but also know that it may be difficult to properly identify comfort vs pet... Thoughts? Thanks in advance!
Laura
First things first, you guys are nicer than we are by allowing comfort / emotional support animals in the theater. We don't do that at all.
Because emotional support animals are not covered under the ADA, if you are a private organization, I believe you're within your right to ask for documentation/proof of emotional support animals. However, you cannot ask that of service animals. Just so you know though, pretty much anyone can get their pet certified as an ESA online, so you could be essentially getting a lot of "pets with papers."
As far as service animals go, you can ask questions of a service animal. I always stick with two because it tends to get me through: 1) Is this animal a service animal? 2) What service is this animal trained to perform? (The third is: Is this animal required because of a disability?)
Reminder: service animals in the theater can be dogs or miniature ponies.
If you have an animal who is disrupting the show, the first question that should be asked is "is their owner about to have a major medical episode and do we need to get EMS on site?" - you can absolutely freely ask this of any animal owner if the animal is disruptive. Most of the time, a service dog barking means something bad is coming.
However, if an animal is being disruptive and the owner says they are not alerting to a potential medical emergency, you can ask the guest and their animal to step out of the hall and into the lobby. I wouldn't kick them out, however, if that happens, you can ask them to watch the performance from monitor screens in the lobby because the animal is being disruptive to the other audience members.
Let me know if you have any questions or if I can be of more help!