Posted on 07/21/2011 11:43:22 AM PDT by rawhide
A Marietta McDonald's manager is accused of punching a mother who brought a service dog and autistic children into the restaurant.
A Cobb County warrant charges Tiffany Denise Allen with simple battery, simple assault fear and disorderly conduct.
According to the warrant, Jennifer Schwenker entered the Marietta McDonald's located at 1291 Bells Ferry Road with her children and service dog on July 12.
Allen, off-duty at the time, became irate that the dog was in the restaurant, the warrant says.
Schwenker explained to Allen the dog's purpose and told the manager the dog was legally allowed to be inside the establishment.
Allen continued to berate Schwenker, following her around the restaurant and even into a bathroom. During the incident, one of Schwenker's twins disappeared. The mother threw her cup to the ground and ran outside to look for her child, the warrant says.
Allen believed the cup was thrown at her and followed the mother into the parking lot, where she is accused of hitting her in the face.
Surveillance video shows several McDonald's employees holding Allen back, according to the warrant.
The warrant for Allen's arrest was signed July 15. She is not listed as having been in custody at the Cobb County jail.
An owner of the McDonald's, who did not want to be named, declined an interview but did say Allen no longer works at the restaurant.
I suspect this is the sort of scenario that will ultimately change the laws in favor of forcing certification and ID of all service dogs. It will probably be a nightmare (as is everything the govt does) as they will overkill with lots more law than is require, but there you have it.
BTW utzhiemersism... LOL
Thank you, fellow dog lover, for understanding “this whole mess”.
You can ask the person if they have a disability that requires a service dog, but you can’t ask what the disability is. You can ask what the dog is trained to do, but you can’t ask for proof that the dog can do it.
I’m not saying I agree with the law, but that’s what the law is.
Is there an office pool on the cash settlement?
Oh, I should say, I was not commenting on this particular case, the manager seems like an idiot.
And you seem to have more common sense than the average person. And the average dog may well have more common sense than the average person. The big problem always seems to be that some people just want to game the system. And the people who put the system in place always seem to be totally caught by surprise. They are idiots too, apparently.
Maybe I am missing something so I am honestly asking this without any passive aggresive attention. Forgive me if it appears to be not as intended.
How is it faster to toss the cup on the floor than to just set it on a table as you are walking to the door? Or faster than tossing in the garbage? What if you tossed it on the floor and then slipped and fell yourself, therefore preventing you from saving your child at all?
Yes. And we’ve seen the introduction in the last few years of emotional support dogs, which are further differentiated from therapy dogs and service dogs. I believe that service dogs cannot be excluded from any building, but the other two can be depending on the location. But I may be remembering that wrong.
We have a local street festival and we had to ban dogs from it. They fight with each other and bite people and use the bathroom everywhere. People get indignant because they think their dog is special and they want to show it to the world.
If your kid is autistic and may bolt from the McDonald’s to be hit by a car, don’t take it to a McDonald’s. Unless you WANT it to be hit by a car. OK, I can understand that.
Since there is no way to tell if a dog is a service dog, it’s a moot point.
I have no problem with the service dog, just the lack of identification.
Here is an article from a year ago that may fill in some of the misinformation and stupidity that has been sliding down some posters legs.
Hell, they even take the dog to church....Crazy people,/s
http://assignmentatlanta.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/30/
I think Ms Schwenker has been subjected to a hate crime or two.
I totally agree with you about taking these little dogs to crowded areas. And, I think a dog taken into a restaurant should be “zipped” into his carrier for the comfort of others. And, just like a misbehaving child, if the dog makes any noise, the owner of little Mr. Yappy should be asked to leave by the management.
But, most parents don’t even care to train their children to behave in public these days, so it is probably asking too much to expect them to train their dogs, or get them trained, and then maintain the training.
So many people “infantalize” little dogs, and give them no training. This makes them have “small dog syndrome” ~ and they can be very unstable because of this.
I have owned and trained Belgian Malinois before, and understand that a small dog is just the same as a big dog, and has the same need for manners and training.
Our Havanese is well trained, and meets all the requirements, but because of his “cute” factor, and his size, we would not take him in public without being zipped into a carrier or stroller, which would identify him as a service dog, on duty.
And, because of my husband’s balance issues, we stay out of crowded areas completely. We rarely go out to eat, (so few restaurants have chairs with arms these days) but when we do, we usually leave him at home.
You are correct! A service dog should have identification, no matter what the situation.
Any why does anyone have to take a dog into McDonald’s, for heaven’s sake.
Aren’t there walk-up/drive in windows?
There is a difference between a “need” and a “want”, in my opinion, and that should be the criteria in deciding where service dogs should be permitted.
Yeah, I stopped training other people’s dogs because I could train the dogs, but not the people. :)
If her kids disappear so easily and so quickly, I’m not sure why she doesn’t keep some sort of gps on them (or maybe she does). What a scary thing. I don’t think I would have the courage to take them out by myself if I were her. She is bound to have one or the other get away from her (from the sound of things) and have something happen. I don’t think the dog is capable of keeping them in check. It’s sad, but some things in life are just not fair from our point of view. This is one of those things.
No, you don’t “have” to toss whatever you are holding. You can set it down.
It concerns me that you believe one *has* to throw one’s object in order to rush out and save one’s child. That is a poor attempt to absolve one’s self of responsibility should, say, the tossed coffee cup burn another customer or should another customer slip on the spilled coffee.
So, you are sending me to the same link I read and commented on? Is that all you have?
The focus is not on the cup, it is on saving someone’s life. If you are at a curb and a child rides a tricycle in front of an oncoming truck, hopefully nobody would for a moment think “Well I’d better put this cup down neatly someplace” before rushing off to save the child’s life. The comments here suggest that the writers are not understanding that. There is no “walking.” In this situation as far as you know you have only seconds to save your child’s life if they have escaped out of the building. And the quickness of your action may determine if your child lives or if there is a real accident, with real blood, a real death, a real funeral, and a real destroyed family. It’s not theory. And I’ve seen multiple parents with autistic children have to deal with it.
Obviously no one should make a mess if they can help it, and even in an emergency situation most people will instinctively attempt to put things down without causing a mess if they can. (And if they do make a mess they will come back and clean it up) But not knowing her situation or how serious her child’s behavioral problems may be (but knowing that “escaping” is not an uncommon characteristic of autistm) for this part of the story I can clearly see her being in a situation in which she either tried to put the coffee down anywhere as fast as she could and it fell to the floor in her rush, or she was not within arm’s reach of a place to put it down and so the instinct kicked in to save her child rather than “be neat.”
Again, if she threw the cup down and then walked after her child—that’s wrong. But if this was a real potential life-or-death situation then I can’t side with people who would get on someone’s case for making a small mess as a byproduct of a rescue operation.
I haven’t heard all the facts. Maybe she was being a jerk. I don’t know. But from what little information I have to go on I can also see a definite possibility that her reaction was that of a terrifed mother and is explainable.
As a parent of an autistic child I just thought I would comment on this thread to provide others with an “insider’s view” of what might have been going on with the mother in this story. That’s all. I have no dog in this hunt.
I say go for it! Your dog sounds like a delight.
Exactly! It’s the same with my autistic grandson.
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