A couple of Nova Scotia microbreweries are petitioning for a change to regulations, after they were informed by authorities that they could no longer allow dogs on their premises.
Cameron Hartley of Schoolhouse Brewery in Windsor, N.S., says a food inspector recently told him that he could no longer allow pets other than guide dogs to join their owners on the patio.
“He informed me that anywhere where there’s food, we are not permitted to have any pets,” Hartley told CTV Atlantic. “That was news to me.”
Brightwood Brewery in Dartmouth, N.S. was also recently informed by provincial inspectors that dogs were not allowed in its taproom.
Brightwood started an online petition asking provincial politicians to change food safety regulations, which state that no live animals are allowed in foods establishments, except for live seafood and guide animals that do not pose a risk of contamination.
“Brightwood Brewery believes that dogs are family members,” the brewery stated in its Change.org petition. “We believe that Nova Scotia’s restrictive dog laws can be detrimental to their overall wellbeing.”
“We purchase our pre-prepared food from local off-site kitchens (and) store these products in an enclosed refrigerated display and reheat in our commercial oven to serve; all done behind our bar (where dogs are not permitted),” the petition goes on.
Hartley supports the petition. He says that banning dogs is bad for the local economy.
“I’m an entrepreneur that’s really trying to create a revitalization in rural Nova Scotia and part of that is having establishments with a lively downtown (where) people can come visit and bring their dogs,” he said.
Although thousands of people have signed the petition demanding a change to the regulations, not everyone agrees that pooches should be allowed on patios or in taprooms.
“I think that my dog should be allowed but I know that there’s some dogs that aren’t well-behaved or could act out on something that scares them, so no, I don’t think they should be (allowed),” one patio patron told CTV Atlantic.
Nova Scotia isn’t the only province that bans pets other than service dogs from eateries. In Ontario, animals are banned from anywhere “where food is manufactured, prepared, processed, handled, served, displayed, stored, sold or offered for sale.”
