Or lawyers. Or maybe someone can pod cast the entire thing. -----Original Message----- From: gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:gps-talkusers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of gerry leary Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 1:26 PM To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [gps-talkusers] Re: FW: [TSE-Chat] Fw: [doggie-den] Fw: Please Show That Discrimination Is Not Acceptable! Maybe we should bring another large group with imbedded reporters who don't look the type. Gerry ----- Original Message ----- From: Sarai <mailto:bucc7465@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: Seeing Eye <mailto:seeingeye-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx> ; GPS <mailto:gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: GDUI <mailto:GDU-United@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> ; ACB List <mailto:acb-l@xxxxxxx> ; alabama <mailto:alabama@xxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 12:11 PM Subject: [gps-talkusers] FW: [TSE-Chat] Fw: [doggie-den] Fw: Please Show That Discrimination Is Not Acceptable! -----Original Message----- From: TSE-Chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:TSE-Chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Barbara Gatto Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 11:19 AM To: Seeingeye List Cc: Seeing eye Chat Subject: [TSE-Chat] Fw: [doggie-den] Fw: Please Show That Discrimination Is Not Acceptable! Subject: Please Show That Discrimination Is Not Acceptable! | Hey, all, | I haven't posted much recently, since I'm only on the Digest version, | but I wanted to enlist your help. I just returned from a wonderful week with | the Sendero Group (the maker's of the BrailleNote GPS) in Maine. Every year, | the Sendero Group goes on a tour to an interesting destination anywhere in the | world. They've toured California's Gold Country and last year they visited | Ireland and Scotland. As I said, this year's trip was to Maine and, luckily, | they have scholarships for college students and young professionals which pay | for the hotel and traveling expenses. The trip is basically just a group of | thirty blind folks going to a cool location and traveling around independently | using their canes, guide dogs, and the Braille Note GPS. I highly, highly | recommend that those of you who are interested in going next year apply for a | scholarship. It's a really great time. | Okay, so anyway, that's the background. Here's why I need everybody's | help. | As wonderful as the trip was, we did encounter one really disturbing | incident. As a cane user, I don't encounter guide dog discrimination myself, so | traveling in a group where many people used dogs was an eye opening | experience. On Thursday, we were in Portland, Maine and after lunch, several of us | decided to go to the Shipyard Brewing Company. Some of our other traveling | companions had had Shipyard beer at the restaurant where they'd eaten lunch and | they highly recommended that a group of us go check it out. So, about fifteen | of us braved the light rain that had begun to fall and walked the mile or so | to the Shipyard Brewery. With visions of hops and barley dancing in our heads, | we all trooped into the brewery. Unbeknownst to me at the time, several of | the brewery employees pulled two members of our group aside and told them that | they didn't want "all these blind people" going upstairs and taking the | tour. After all, they said, there are hoses all over the floor and puddles of | water everywhere. Luckily, these two people explained that we would all be using | canes or dog guides and that these mobility aids would prevent us from | getting into any sort of trouble. | Things seemed settled and we all trooped in to the waiting room. There | were about fifty or sixty people waiting to take the tour. A brewery tour | guide came up to the front of the room and announced, "Just so everybody knows, | we're going to watch an eight minute film on the brewery and the brewing | process. After that, we're going to go upstairs and take a tour. This will involve | going up three flights of stairs and there are hoses and puddles of water | all over the place. So, you might all want to think about that as you watch the | film." | Naturally, all of us knew that this was code for, "Are you blind folks sure | you can handle this?" So, we all nodded and smiled amiably and sat through | the eight minute introductory film. After it had ended, the tour guide came | back and informed the audience that guide dogs were not allowed upstairs. We | tried explaining to the employees that not allowing the guide dogs to come with | their owners was against the law, but they didn't care. They seemed | particularly concerned that the dogs would somehow contaminate their yeast. We | reminded them that guide dogs are very well groomed and cared for and that, after | all, how could they guarantee that any people who went on the tour had good | hygiene and were clean? After arguing with them for quite some time, it became | apparent to us that they would use any excuse to keep us from going. First, | they didn't want us to go because of safety concerns. When we refuted those | concerns, they brought up the guide dog issue. After we told them that that was | discrimination, they told us that they just didn't like large groups coming | in. (This is complete crap. We were just going to tag along with a public tour | of about fifty or sixty people and their were only about fifteen or twenty | of us. There was plenty of room.) Finally, they offered us a tour if we left | the guide dogs downstairs. Most of the group decided not to go on the tour on | principle and also because of the practical matter of where they would leave | their guide dogs. However, two guide dog users agreed to leave their dogs | downstairs with a friend and go on the tour anyway. Being a cane user, I decided | to join them. So, Jamie took the tour guide's arm and Denna took my arm and | we were off. I was still seething, but I wanted to see what about the brewery | floor was so treacherous and frightening. I can honestly say that there was | no reason the dogs couldn't have gone. We were never in contact with any of | the actual product and, as I said, they don't screen people for cleanliness | and all of the guide dogs were probably better groomed then some of the people | who take the tour. | Because we had been treated with such disrespect, none of us bought anything | from the gift shop and Mike May called the Seeing Eye to look into the | matter. We quickly found out that another guide dog user had once been denied | access into another brewery and the court had found the brewery to be guilty of | discrimination. We wished we had known this when we went in, but we warned | them that they have not seen the last of us. Sendero Group and the Seeing Eye | are going to have their lawyers contact the brewery. | In the meantime, we need to show the brewery that denying access to | blind people who use guide dogs is unacceptable. Many guide dog users in our | group have toured other breweries without incident and, as I said, there is legal | precedent that breweries are not allowed to do this. Please email the | brewery and let them know that they have lost your business and that of your family | and friends. They need to know that what they did angered not only a group | of fifteen blind people, but also those people's family and friends. I | especially encourage you to pass this on to other listservs, particularly guide dog | users listservs. Here is the Shipyard Brewing Company's contact info: | Email: info@xxxxxxxxxxxx | Office Phone: 207-761-0807 | Office Toll Free: 1-800-789-0684 | Thanks for your help! | Stacy | PS Throughout the trip, all the scholarship winners were responsible for | writing a web log of the trip. 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