A pair of disabled veterans have filed a federal lawsuit against a Longmont gluten-free bakery and the city alleging that bakery owners denied the couple service because they brought service dogs into the business on two separate occasions.
Jennifer and Gary Block also allege that Longmont police officers who responded to Aime’s Love during the second incident handled the situation improperly and unlawfully made the couple leave the business.
The Blocks are seeking unspecified damages.
A Longmont police report paints a different version of the events, with police saying the couple left on their own, and the owners of the bakery merely questioning whether the dogs were legitimate service dogs.
The suit alleges that the bakery’s owners and the city violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The suit also contends that the bakery violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, and that the city violated the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The ADA allows people with disabilities to bring animals into businesses and other buildings where they would not usually be permitted.
Jennifer Love Walter, co-owner of Aime’s Love, said she was aware of the suit when reached by phone on Friday afternoon but declined to comment in a subsequent phone call.
Longmont police Chief Mike Butler and city spokesman Rigo Leal declined to comment in separate emails. The suit is not specifically filed against the police department but the city as a whole.
The Blocks allege that they entered the bakery on March 8 with a Great Dane named Rajah that the suit characterizes as a “service animal in training” but they were denied service. As they left, the couple contends they asked the owners to familiarize themselves with laws regarding service animals, according to court records.
Jennifer and Gary Block allege that they returned 10 days later with a different service dog, Loki, and were again denied service. The suit states that the owners of the bakery threatened to call police, which the couple “encouraged.”
The suit alleges that a Longmont dispatcher told the owners that the plaintiffs were “trespassing.” Four police officers — two of whom were being trained — responded to the bakery, and the couple alleges the officers behaved in a “dismissive and condescending” manner and didn’t make the proper accommodations that should be afforded to people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental health issues.
Police eventually told the couple to leave the bakery, the suit alleges. The suit also contends that the bakery owners and police violated federal disability law when they asked for “proof” that their dog was indeed a service animal. Jennifer Block told police that a person can ask if a dog is a service animal and what task it performs but can’t ask any further questions of the dog’s handler.
Attempts to obtain the police dispatch recording on Friday were not successful. Dispatch notes obtained by the Times-Call state that police responded to the bakery because the owner told the couple they couldn’t have the dog in the store, and they didn’t have proof of the dog’s status or a service animal vest on the dog.
A Longmont police report indicates that the Blocks appeared to leave the business on their own accord. Outside, Gary Block produced a card that identified Loki as a service dog. The officer told Block that although he was not required to produce any proof, doing so could have averted the incident.
A second officer remarked in the report that Gary Block had been recording the incident and the officer found that “odd,” especially if the incident was not “pre-meditated on their part.”
One of the business’s owners told police she didn’t want to press trespassing charges against the couple but had concerns the dogs weren’t really service animals and that their presence would violate health codes, the report stated.
The Blocks’ attorney, Zach Warren, said in an email that Gary Block is a former United States Marine who was injured in a car crash that left him suffering from “significant neurocognitive deficits.” Jennifer Block was a Navy Hospital corpsman stationed with the Marines.
He said that he would classify the suit as a civil rights lawsuit because disability rights are an “important facet of the broader civil rights discipline.”
“It also just so happens that disabilities (and particularly mental health issues) play a significant role in many other kinds of civil rights cases — including the use of force by law enforcement, conditions of confinement in jails and prisons, and so forth,” Warren said.
John Bear: 303-473-1355, [email protected] or twitter.com/johnbearwithme
