By Abigail Curtis
Bangor Daily News staff writer
AUGUSTA — Flash, a service dog, took the news lying down last week when the Maine Human Rights Commission found that his blind owner likely was discriminated against by the Great Wall Buffet in Augusta.
The golden retriever spent the Feb. 25 commission meeting lying quietly at the feet of his owner, Bruce Archer of Presque Isle, a rehabilitation counselor with the Maine Department of Labor who succinctly summed up his response to the group’s finding.
“Yahoo,” Archer said after the hearing on his complaint that restaurant staff treated him differently in November 2010 because he dined with his dog. “It’s a good thing for Flash. It’s the only restaurant I’ve ever been treated like this. I’m hoping this will be more of an education piece … I need to be treated like anybody else.”
Archer’s attorney, Kristen Aiello, told the commissioners that her client had been humiliated when he, Flash and Archer’s personal assistant were seated in an isolated area of the large restaurant and followed on their trip to the buffet tables by a woman with an industrial bucket on wheels who mopped up right behind the group.
“Separate but equal is a doctrine we left behind a long time ago,” she said of her client’s treatment at the restaurant. “Rather than welcomed, he was treated almost as if he was a pariah — unwelcomed and segregated. … I think if the commission votes against finding reasonable grounds, we’d be taking a terrible step backward to the days of separate but equal.”
But John Topchik, attorney for the owner of the Great Wall Buffet, told the commissioners that “separate but equal” does not apply in this case.
“There is no evidence that my client discriminated against blind people,” he said. “There’s a reason why dogs aren’t allowed generally in restaurants and kitchens. Some people just don’t like it because they’re concerned about having animals in close proximity with food.”
He said that his client had tried to strike a reasonable balance between the restaurant’s rights and Archer’s rights.
“Flash doesn’t have any rights,” Topchik said.
Commissioner Deborah Whitworth of Portland pointed out that Flash did not seem like the kind of animal that would cause distress.
“The service animal seems more contained than I’ve seen some people in restaurants, relative to cleanliness and disposition,” she said. “The service animal doesn’t seem to be untrained, like maybe a jumping-around Chihuahua, or another animal that would be sniffing at food.”
If Archer and the Great Wall Buffet now cannot settle the dispute through mediation, Archer can sue in Superior Court.
