[nagdu] National Epidemic of Horrible People Pretending toBe Disabled |

[L Gwizdak]

Good info, Marion!

Just last week, I was at an event at our blind center.  A man in a 
wheelchair who is also visually impaired came in with some friends who are 
members of our center.  I met this man once before.  He has a German 
Shephard as a service dog.  I have not seen the dog perform anything but 
that doesn't mean that the dog isn't trained.  I just haven't been around 
them much.

Anyway, this man told me that he was just kicked oout of his apartment in a 
Senior/Disabled complex where there are a couple of guide dog users I know 
there.  The guy said that the manager kicked him out because he had a 
service dog.  I was thinking to myself - what's the rest of the story?  That 
particular complex not only allows small pet dogs, but they had a tenant 
there for several years with a service dog and no problem.  My friends live 
there with their guide dogs for years and no problem.  I met the manager 
when I was with a prospective tenant and she was very cordial towards us and 
my guide dog.

When we were riding the bus home that night, the guy started to tell one of 
that complex's guide dog users that she would get kicked out because of her 
dog!  My friend was starting to get upset about that and I just told her to 
call me whan she got home in a casual manner, to make sure she got home OK. 
She did call me and told me that that guy was letting his dog loose outside 
and that dog went after my friend's dog growling and scared my friend.  He 
also said to her, "You can't see so you can't know anything".  The other 
guide dog user also had a problem with this same dog and, apparently other 
elderly tenants.  In my opinion, the manager was right in evicting this man.

Marion, do you know what the law says about service dogs that need to do 
their work off leash?  This man had an ID - have no idea if it is fake or 
not - that said his dog was certified to work off leash.  I do know that 
some service dogs work off leash but they are in the process of doing a task 
for the person and not running and growling at other dogs.  Do you know what 
the ADA says about this?

Lyn and Landon
"Asking who's the man and who's the woman in an LGBT relationship is like 
asking which chopstick is the fork" - Unknown
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "National Association of Guide Dog Users" <blind411 at verizon.net>
To: "'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, October 14, 2013 9:25 AM
Subject: Re: [nagdu] National Epidemic of Horrible People Pretending toBe 
Disabled |


> Dear All,
> I think we should be very skeptical of the flurry of such articles
> in the past couple months. Most of them have one thing in common: Most
> either refer to or are featuring CCI consumers. CCI is the organization
> promoting an online petition to regulate the online sale of service dog 
> gear
> and identification.
>
> These reports have asserted it is a federal crime to pass a pet off
> as a service dog. I find it very interesting, as violation of the ADA is 
> not
> a criminal offense, rather, the aDA is a civil law with no criminal
> remedies.
>
> It is my personal opinion that the prevalence of this sort of
> behavior is being intentionally exaggerated in an effort to support the 
> need
> for certification. This would only benefit the training programs, not the
> disabled community. I am of the opinion that the best way to counter this
> issue - if it is really an issue - is to better educate places of public
> accommodation about what is really a service dog and that the rights of 
> the
> disabled under the ADA are not absolute, but carry with it specific
> responsibilities of acceptable behavior.
>
> I received a call from a restaurant a couple weeks ago about someone
> who came in with an untethered  dog, claiming it was a service dog. The
> owner asked if it was a service dog and the patron told her that it was 
> none
> of her business and she could not ask any questions because doing so was a
> violation of HIPAA. I advised her that she could and gave her the 
> questions
> she could ask. I was advised the patron came in again a couple days later,
> she asked the right questions, he again made the same assertions, he was
> asked to leave, and he told her he would see her in court. She handed him
> our brochure and told him to give me a call if he had any questions.
>
>
>
>
>
> According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, it's a federal crime to
> use a fake service animal to take advantage of privileges reserved for 
> those
> who genuinely need the assistance of such pets. Nonetheless, according to 
> a
> recent report from the Associated Press, the use of phony "dog tags" is on
> the rise, with owners faking papers or buying badges off the Internet just
> so that they can bring their pooches into restaurants, shops, and other
> venues that don't usually allow dogs. Advocates of both pets and the
> disabled are divided as to how to police those who abuse service animal
> privileges, and some are calling for federal authorities to better 
> regulate
> and enforce service animal rules around the country.
>
>
>
> While it's assumed that only a small percentage of the population would 
> even
> think of using a faux service dog to avoid leaving a pet outside a store 
> or
> at home in order to grab a bite at a restaurant, even a single incident of
> phony service dog usage is enough to get people-disabled and able-bodied
> alike-up in arms. Outrage followed the story of a 33-year-old New Yorker
> named Brett David, who was featured in the New York Post over the summer.
> David bragged about bringing his fake "therapy dog" named Napoleon into
> movie theaters, restaurants, nightclubs, Whole Foods, Starbucks, and more
> mainly because "I was sick of tying up my dog outside," as he put it.
> "Sometimes, they'll give me a hassle and say bring the papers next time, 
> but
> for five bucks, you order [a patch] off eBay, and it works 90 percent of 
> the
> time," he explained.
>
>
>
> People like David aren't the only ones pretending to be disabled to take
> advantage of special perks. In late September, the Walt Disney Company 
> felt
> compelled to change its disabled guest policy at theme parks partly due to
> "abuse of the system." The announcement came after reports surfaced that
> wealthy guests were paying wheelchair-riding tour guides top dollar so 
> that
> the group could use the line-skipping privileges granted to the disabled 
> at
> Disney theme parks.
>
>
>
> Meanwhile, over the years, police around the U.S. periodically engage in
> sweeps to round up drivers fraudulently using handicapped parking passes,
> and apparently it's pretty easy to snag people abusing the system. Last
> spring, over the course of a mere four hours, authorities in Oakland,
> Calif., confiscated 13 handicapped placards being used illegally by 
> drivers.
> That's out of a total of 70 placards they came across, meaning nearly one 
> in
> five was fraudulent.
>
>
>
> A report in Seattle published over the summer estimated that one in eight
> drivers using disabled parking placards is doing so fraudulently, costing
> the city $1.4 million annually. Like in Seattle, drivers with such 
> placards
> get to park for free in Providence, R.I., where it just so happens that
> there has been an influx of cars with disabled parking passes near train
> stations and bus stops. Police began routinely demanding verification and
> handed out multiple $500 fines to those who were using passes registered 
> to
> someone else. "Not only is it an affront to the persons who have a
> disability and need the space, they're cheating the city out of revenue by
> parking there," one Providence police officer said of the offenders.
>
>
>
> In yet another sting, in Orlando, Fla., police zeroed in on offenders like 
> a
> 34-year-old woman using a placard registered to someone who was 85, and 
> who
> had died a few months prior to the bust. Apparently, the driver, arrested
> just before 3 a.m., was using the placard in order to park in a convenient
> handicap spot downtown-so that her car was nearby when the bars closed.
>
>
>
> Suspicions of disabled placard abuse have gotten so bad in New 
> Jersey-where
> more than 500,000 people have special placard and license plate
> privileges-that the state introduced tougher regulations last spring. In 
> the
> past, anyone who classified for a pass could renew automatically every 
> three
> years. As of August 1, though, drivers must submit proof of their 
> condition
> every three years before they're granted special privileges. Disabled
> parking placards were also redesigned so that it is easier for police and
> meter checkers to see expiration dates, and so that it's more difficult 
> for
> drivers to unlawfully change the information on the passes.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Brad Tuttle @bradrtuttle
>
>
>
> Brad Tuttle covers business and personal finance for TIME. He lives in
> Massachusetts with his wife and four sons, and also teaches journalism at
> UMass-Amherst.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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