{"id":1311812,"date":"2019-06-25T17:47:23","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T23:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=982205"},"modified":"2019-06-25T17:47:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T23:47:23","slug":"garfield-county-public-health-clarifies-rules-on-service-and-emotional-support-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/garfield-county-public-health-clarifies-rules-on-service-and-emotional-support-animals\/","title":{"rendered":"Garfield County Public Health clarifies rules on service and emotional support animals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Service dog.<\/strong>
Shutterstock image<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Garfield County Public Health has fielded numerous calls recently concerning animals being in area restaurants and grocery stores, prompting the department to clarify the what qualifies as a service animal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been receiving a lot more [calls] now that the weather is warm,\u201d county Public Health Specialist Carrie Godes said. \u201cI received one actually just last week from a concerned person who was in a grocery store and saw an animal in the basket of a shopping cart.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent Garfield County Public Health press release emphasized how laws afforded to service animals do not extend to emotional support animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe receive complaints of animals behaving poorly, going to the bathroom on floors, begging for food off other patron\u2019s plates, or riding in grocery carts,\u201d Nettie Mojarro, environmental health specialist for the county said in the release.<\/p>\n

\u201cService animals typically do not behave like that,\u201d Mojarro added.<\/p>\n

Federal law classifies service animals as trained animals that do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities. Additionally, in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, entities must permit service animals to accompany people with disabilities in all areas of their business open to the public, unless they pose a direct threat or health risk to other people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not pets. They are working animals,\u201d Godes explained of service animals, which may perform tasks like guiding a blind person, pulling a wheelchair or retrieving items such as medications.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is only service animals that are allowed in food serving establishments,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While the law does not require service animals to wear special harnesses or for their owners to carry certification papers, employees may ask a patron if their animal is a service animal and what task it has been trained to perform.<\/p>\n

A petty offense, state law provides that misrepresenting an animal as a service animal may carry with it a fine of between $50 and $500.<\/p>\n

Godes explained how Garfield County Consumer Protection Division was continuing to work with food serving establishments about the laws differentiating service animals and emotional support animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you are going into a restaurant, when you are going into a grocery store \u2014 any place where food is served \u2014 it is really only a place for service animals and not a place for emotional support animals,\u201d Godes said. \u201c[Emotional support animals] are there to provide comfort, or assistance, but they does not rise to the level of a service animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

mabennett@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Service dog.Shutterstock image Garfield County Public Health has fielded numerous calls recently concerning animals being in area restaurants and grocery stores, prompting the department to clarify the what qualifies as a service animal. \u201cWe have been receiving a lot more [calls] now that the weather is warm,\u201d county Public Health Specialist Carrie Godes said. \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1311812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 15:45:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1311812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1311812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1311812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1311812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}