Southeast : Restaurant Kicks Out Blind Women With Guide Dogs

Ada Dellarso and Louise Cook, both 48 and blind, just wanted to sit down and munch a couple of Whoppers at a Long Beach Burger King.

But restaurant employees--despite state and federal laws that protect the blind--threw the women out of the Cherry Avenue restaurant this week, saying their guide dogs posed a health threat.

“It’s very aggravating and disheartening for us,” Dellarso said. “It’s like they’re telling us we can’t go anywhere in life, [that] because we can’t see we can’t enjoy what’s around us anyway.”

Dellarso said she tried to show the restaurant’s employees a card citing state law that enables a guide dog to accompany a disabled person into a restaurant. After that failed, she called a police officer, who tried to intervene before backing off because the dispute did not involve a criminal matter.

Frustrated, Dellarso and Cook ended up following Wally, a black Labrador, and Karma, a yellow Lab, down the street to buy some burgers at a takeout stand.

Franchise owner Jacqueline Phi could not be reached for comment. But an employee, who declined to give his name, acknowledged that he helped throw out the women Tuesday so he would not run afoul of the city Health Department.

Meanwhile, a Long Beach Health Department spokesman said the dogs should have been allowed in the restaurant, and a spokeswoman for the Miami-based Burger King Corp. said she would call Phi to explain the law.

“On behalf of Burger King, we apologize to these women,” spokeswoman Kim Miller said. “Those who need an assistant animal should be treated with the same respect given to all of our guests.”