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Man awarded nearly £5,000 after pub refused entry to his assistance chihuahua
An Australian man has been awarded nearly AU$8,000 (£4,700) after a pub barred him for a month and refused to let his medically-approved assistance chihuahua into the venue.
Raymond Matthews had frequented his local, The Woombye Pub in the Sunshine Coast of Australia, a couple of times a week for a bite to eat and a beer. But when the pub was taken over by new management, he found that his assistance chihuahua, which has medical approval from a doctor, was no longer welcome inside.
After reportedly making several pleas to bring Coo-ee inside, Matthews says that he was instead barred from The Woombye for a month.
“I’d been to the doctor to get the dog signed off as an assistant”, he told 7News.
“What she does is she introduces me to myriad people – the amount of hurdles I’ve got over because of the dog, just breaking the barriers down that normally exist with bureaucracy.
“I take the dog with me and it just brings people down to a level playing field and you can speak with them, you can get along with them, you’ve got a common denominator and the dog, I feel, is the one that does it.”
“(The) dog almost got run over one night, having had to stay outside,” he told a 7News programme.
Matthews eventually decided to take legal action against the pub, and was awarded AU$8,000 (£4,700) after a tribunal found that the venue had broken anti-discrimination laws.
The venue has also reportedly apologised to Matthews.