The Blind are Lepers at KFC in Dayton (Scopes Monkey Trial), Tennessee

[Elidor]

This happened to a couple of friends of ours (mine and my SO) last weekend:

Anne is a blind woman working toward her Masters in Education at Tennessee Technological University. She and her husband stopped at the KFC in Dayton, TN last weekend with her seeing-eye dog, Susie. This is of course the famously anti-gay town that basically tried to ban gays recently, as though they felt an obligation to live up to their legacy of trying Darwin's Theory of Evolution in court. Things ain't changed much around heyah since them days.

An angry lady from behind the counter hollered across the dining room at them, telling them they couldn't have a dog there, couldn't eat there, had to leave at once. Rick, Anne's husband, asked to speak to the manager while Anne felt like hiding under the table with Susie. The angry lady said she was the manager and to get out now.

Rick, a vietnam vet, explained that Susie is a legal seeing-eye dog and they have a card that says so and they are allowed to take her anywhere under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1996, which ensures equal access. The manager continued to insist that they leave from behind the counter at the top of her lungs.

Rick was angry. "We're not going anywhere," he said. He and Anne ate their meal in front of a restaurant full of witnesses. At one point, he announced, "I want some more chicken, how 'bout you, Anne?" He got up and got some more. God bless Rick.

They ate their meal, but they were treated like lepers and made to feel like the untouchables of India. They were singled out for shame in a public restaurant as though they were lepers, or worse. When they left, the manager told them not to come back.

They have contacted the regional KFC office to complain, and essentially were given the brush-off. When Rick called the district office they told him that it would have been different if they had announced at the start of their visit that they needed special access.

Afterward, Anne and Rick went to the police station. The police told them they have a good case against the restaurant chain. (!!!)

KFC has more than 11,000 restaurants in more than 80 countries and territories around the world. And in quite a few U.S. cities, KFC is teaming up with sister restaurants, A&W, All-American Food™, Long John Silver's, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, selling products from the popular chains in one convenient location.

KFC is part of Yum! Brands, Inc., which is the world's largest restaurant system with over 32,500 KFC, A&W All-American Food™,Taco Bell, Long John Silver's and Pizza Hut restaurants in more than 100 countries and territories.

Anne and Rick are very nice people, very lively and gracious and vivacious. They deserve so much better than this. What should they do now?

My own instinct tells me that the more publicity she creates, the more of a case she has. I've told her to contact the ACLU.

[CO Liberal]

1. If I Lived Closer to Tennessee....

...I'd invite Anne and Rick (and Susie) out to dinner. Tell them to give KFC hell!!!

(Somehow, I don't this would have happened if Col. Sanders were still alive...)

[NecessaryOnslaught]

2. Wow

"KFC has more than 11,000 restaurants in more than 80 countries and territories around the world. And in quite a few U.S. cities, KFC is teaming up with sister restaurants, A&W, All-American Food™, Long John Silver's, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, selling products from the popular chains in one convenient location."

Thats alot of pure shit under one roof.

[donco6]

3. Is there an association for the blind?

I'm sure there must be. I would suggest they contact them, explain what happened, tell them that they just want to make sure that KFC and other restaurants are reminded ONCE AGAIN, that seeing-eye dogs are allowed anywhere a person can go. I'll bet that association will get a lot more response than a single person.

Ignorant fool of a manager. You'd have to be living under a rock not to know about seeing-eye dogs.

[sandnsea]

4. Ignorance costs us all

If corporations want people stupid so they can pay them piss poor wages, they ought to expect stuff like this. If they want people smart enough to know about seeing eye dogs, they better start supporting a fair tax base to pay for schools. Until then, they can pay Anne for their own ignorant hiring practices. She deserves it.

[Ms. Clio]

5. Perhaps this story should be sent to some bloggers or journalists?

That dumbass manager deserves to have her name forever linked in Google to discrimination against the disabled.

[SharonAnn]

6. I'm stuck in East Tennessee, less than 40 miles from Dayton.

This place needs a really good wake-up call from lots of people on lots of issues. I know the long-time residents here don't like "outsiders interfering" but after four years here, I've decided I'm not going to be bullied about this kind of stuff. They are perfectly happy to take our money so they're just going to have learn the virtues of "tolerance".

Let me suggest that they do everything they can (short of spending a lot of money) to publicize this event and to file official complaints. They could start with:

Local police and newspaper
Knoxville nespaper (News Sentinel)
State of Tennessee and the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville (kind of the semi-official state paper)
Federal ADA conformance/enforcement agency

The Knoxville paper is at http://www.knoxville.com/
The Tennessean is at http://www.tennessean.com/

PM me if you have any other questions.

[MikeG]

7. Sue their asses. The ADA has civil remedies for this.

[pop goes the weasel]

8. definitely make a noise

But don't think that this kind of thinking is anything other than widespread. It's about time Democrats did some noise-making in their own party. During the county convention here, I tried to get the county Party to endorse a resolution in support of the ADA, and got no where.

Disabled people are routinely mistreated and expected to hide themselves away, unless the local news needs a feel-good human interest story of a scrappy survivor over-coming the odds. Gag.

Look at your own story of your friends--you say they were "treated like lepers." Well, no kidding. Leprosy is a disability, too! In many ways, it is traditionally symbolic of all other disabilities. See how deep fear and prejudice against people with disabilities is, that you inadvertantly compared your friend's experience to leprosy, as if people being shunned and abused for leprosy deserve bad treatment that your friend did not. (I'm not saying you think this; I'm saying the basic prejudice is so deep in our culture that even decent people don't realize how much they have bought into it.)

[Don_G]

9. Here's A PDF Article

With contact information to their corporate headquarters in Louisville: http://www.americandecency.org/newsletter/feb04.pdf

[SalParadise]

10. ANOTHER reason to avoid the local KFC

I'm not big on PETA's goals or methods, but they're no where near as bad as this sick stuff...

http://www.peta.org/feat/moorefield/