Emotional Support Animals-NEW! you can say No ESAs allowed

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One of the most misunderstood things about discrimination is that even if you can legally discriminate, it is always illegal to advertise a discriminatory preference. Discriminatory advertisement is one of the most common reasons that people file a complaint.

There’s a special checkbox just for complaints about discriminatory advertising on your NY Division of Human Rights complaint form.

Most Airbnbs don’t fall under federal ADA laws (yet), but in NY State they fall under the NY State Human Rights Laws as Public Accommodations. Under those NY laws you are required to accept a Service Dog as a way to make a reasonable accommodation to provide equal access to people with disabilities.

Considering your situation, it may not be a reasonable accommodation for you but, nonetheless, you still cannot advertise it, as advertising it is its own part of the law.

What you have to do is leave the part in that is truly informational (and legal) like:

We do not allow pets on the farm. We have eight livestock guardian dogs. The LGDs’ jobs are to protect the livestock from predators. They would consider your pet a predator and therefore your pet is not safe on the farm.

And then if someone contacts you about bringing a service dog, or even if they just show up with a service dog, then you will have to tell them that you feel that it is not a reasonable accommodation for your business and so you will not allow their Service Dog on the farm.

That does not guarantee that someone won’t file a complaint but if they do, you’ll be in a much better position to defend it if you haven’t also been illegally advertising that you don’t accept Service Dogs.

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Thanks. So removing the word service animal and leave the word pet is better? Will do.

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In your opinion, can they advert “Regrettably, we also cannot provide a reasonable business accommodation for service animals due to the potential for injury.”

Seems tough that someone might show up with a service animal, then have to leave due to no reasonable accommodation being possible.

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Maybe best to just say we don’t allow “any other animals on the farm” (with the rest of their very logical reason) instead of specifying pets or service animals? And reminding guests in booking message…

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إذن ، ما هو حيوان الدعم العاطفي؟

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

And before anyone comments, I had to use Google translate for “support animal” and I’m still not sure the translation is correct.

Hehehe.

JF

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I think it translates to “get that dirty pest out of here”.

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Service Animal: A dog or miniature horse that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.

… a miniature horse … no thanks.

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Continuing to follow up. A search using the help function results in no hits for: emotional support animal, service dog.

The pet & accessibility policy appear.
Looks like they are still making changes.

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No they can’t. You cannot advertise it. This is from the NY State Human Rights Law regarding advertising a discriminatory preference. NY actually goes much further and is more detailed than the Feds, who basically just say “advertising”. This is stated as an Unlawful Practice:

to directly or indirectly, to publish, circulate, issue, display, post or mail any written or printed communication, notice or advertisement, to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any such place shall be refused, withheld from or denied to any person on account of race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military status, sex, disability or marital status, or that the patronage or custom thereat of any person of or purporting to be of any particular race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military status, sex or marital status, or having a disability is unwelcome, objectionable or not acceptable, desired or solicited.

Even if your Airbnb is at the top of 300 steps, you still cannot say that you cannot accommodate someone in wheelchair (even if you can’t). You can only say that the only access is up 300 steps. It is the same thing as service dogs, they are considered an assistive aid like a wheelchair and you cannot deny someone because of their assistive aid.

It would be fine to say that.

And that too. However,

You can exclude a Service Animal that is behaving in a manner “that poses a threat to the health and safety of others”. But it must be behaving that way, you cannot exclude it because you think it might behave as such. And it’s important to know that even if you exclude the service dog because of its behavior, you must still give the person with the disability the option to stay without the dog.

And @stonethistle cannot, legally, exclude a service dog because of her fear of how her own dogs may behave toward it. In fact, it would be a great liability for her if her dogs injured a service dog. A service dog costs $20,000 to $50,000 so that is a very high liability. It would be her obligation to keep her dogs restrained if a service dog came to her property.

I said before that I thought she might get away with refusing a service dog because it may not be considered a reasonable modification for her, but I have since read a lot of case law and I withdraw that statement. It would not be wise for her to try to refuse a service dog.

NY state is not fooling around. They even consider websites as public accommodations and mandate that websites must be accessible to people with disabilities. Airbnb has already lost a case in NY regarding the lack of accessibility in the website, so they seem well aware of the laws there and that’s why I think they mention NY state specifically. Because they know.

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Thanks for the analysis (I now assume the “JD” is juris doctor?). I know this is probably not legally enforceable, but can the host have the guest sign a waiver of liability for injury to any animals they bring? Just as a deterrent.

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I really don’t think so and this is why: You can’t treat someone with a disability differently than any of your other guests. Since she is not allowing other guests to bring animals, I think it would be seen as discrimination to make someone with a Service Dog, sign a liability waiver that other guests are not having to sign, regardless of the reason. I suppose she could attempt to work around it (i.e. attempt to disguise her discriminatory intentions) by having all guests sign the same liability waiver and just include animals in it.

However, a Service Dog is not just an animal, they are considered to be an extension of the person with the disability so I highly doubt that any kind of liability waiver that applies to animals would cover a Service Dog. It would be better to leave animals out of it entirely and just have a general liability waiver for all guests.

But it’s extra tricky for an Airbnb host because Airbnb has a strict policy about having dangerous animals at a listing.

Our Standards and Expectations require that hosts not keep dangerous animals in a listing without properly securing the animal in a safe and secure accommodation. If a potentially dangerous animal is present in a listing, hosts are required to indicate its presence in their house rules.

So she does need to mention that she has the dogs that are dangerous, but assuming that they are only dangerous to other animals (and not people), she can say that, “Our farm includes four (however many) dogs that are dangerous and would be a threat to other animals”. But Service Dogs have to be kept out of it completely. It is a law. And for good reason. It is so that people don’t say things that are

But Airbnb also says, If an animal causes an injury, we may suspend the owner’s account or remove them from Airbnb.

It really is not okay to deter people with disabilities from a place that is open to the public. That is why there are protections so that people are not discriminated against by business owners.

I think it is likely that she would have to restrain her dogs during a guest-that-has-a-Service-Dog’s stay as a reasonable accommodation but I have not come across a case with the same exact situation, so am not sure. However, restaurants cannot refuse a service dog because of Health Dept laws, there are thousands of cases about that. And a Service Dog cannot be refused due to allergies or fear of dogs, there are cases about those things too.

However, the ADA (though NY state still has their own laws) says that Service Dogs can be restricted in situations where they would interfere with the fundamental nature of a business, but not necessarily entirely.

If allowing service animals into a facility will change or interfere with the fundamental nature of the business, service animals can be restricted. An example of this is restricting service animal access to some exhibits of a zoo, especially where the service animal will be viewed as a predator or as prey by the animal in the exhibit. In this case, a zoo is still required to allow the service animal in other areas of the zoo.

Personally, I think that @stonethistle just falls on a really really tricky line. It’s hard to know what would happen. It would probably depend a lot on how she dealt with the situation, i.e. if the person was treated well they may not file a complaint or they may be really grateful that she was clear about the threat of her dogs and pick a different place. There are cases that support both scenarios, but almost all of them support the disabled person.

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If we restrain our livestock guardian dogs then they are not protecting (guarding) the livestock. They roam the farm day and night making sure that predators big and small do not come near the livestock. We used to have two to three lamb kills by coyotes every season. Since we got the dogs ten years ago, we have not had one loss due to predators. So far, the few inquiries we have had with guests asking to bring service or emotional support animals have all had the same resolution. Once the guests understand the role of livestock guardian dogs, they would rather stay somewhere else and not put their animals at risk. We would rather give up airbnb hosting than restrain our dogs and prevent them from doing their jobs. Let’s hope it won’t come to that.

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I would think that this would be the most common outcome. Hopefully, the only outcome. But that is one of the reasons that you should not break the law about advertising it in your listing. That could be very offensive to someone and offended people are less likely to come to a reasonable resolution.

That was my original and main point. It was about you mentioning it in your listing, but we’ve since delved into why and gone from there :slight_smile: Just take that bit out of your listing, I think it should fine from there.

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We are also dealing with another “tricky” situation. The avian flu is spreading widely through poultry, duck, emu, flocks in New York State. It is spread by wild birds such as pigeons, turkeys and is spread by humans’ clothing, shoes, etc. We do farm tours and are now denying guests access to several parts of the farm if they have been on a farm, wildlife preserve or zoo prior to their visit to our farm. We provide foot covers, change of outer clothing for our birds’ protection. We have had some guests upset that they have to cover up. The mask mandate all over again! The solution is simple. When they book the tour, I ask them not to visit a farm before their visit and if they live on a farm to make sure they are not wearing any clothing that they wear on their own farm. Only a few guests bristling at this so far!

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Where is it defined what “open to the public” means? Because I don’t see that Airbnbs, as private homes, can be considered to be “open to the public.”

They are open to the specific people who have paid to stay there, given keys or a door code. They aren’t open to the public in the same way that a restaurant, a hotel, a shop, a library, etc are, where the door is open during business hours and anyone can walk in.

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Gosh, it’s always something, lol. Did you add it to your house rules?

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I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if you are offering accommodation to the public you are “open” to the public.

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But I’m not offering accommodation to the public. I am offering accommodation to those guests who send me a request which I have the choice to either accept or not. It isn’t like a restaurant where they can’t refuse service to a customer unless their behavior is disruptive or they walk in maskless or with no shoes and socks when it says on the door that is an entry requirement. I can decline a guest for any or no reason. That’s not open to the public as I see it.

I guess it could be argued that if a host uses IB, it is open to the public, as the host does not have to approve it- anyone who qualifies under the requirements can book.

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This is a hot topic right now

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That article is now outdated, though, as far as Airbnb and ESAs since they just changed their policy.

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