Pups at sup on patios deserve OK from state
Come on, Ohio, let people take their dogs to restaurant patios. What kind of uptight state legislates against puppies?
In case you missed it, The Dispatch reported recently that the Columbus Health Department has been sending letters to restaurants reminding them that state health codes ban dogs, even in outdoor seating areas. Ohio wants to keep us safe, don’t you know.
It tolerates algae-choked waterways, air fouled by coal-fired power plants and earthquakes caused by injection wells. But it detects a public-health menace in a dachshund napping at the feet of a diner. Please.
Not every state is so strict. California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Georgia, New York, Rhode Island and Tennessee are among states that have changed regulations in the past decade or so to permit outdoor customers to dine with dogs. (Leashes are required in most cases.)
Michigan is considering a similar change. Surely, Ohio doesn’t want to be seen as less-trendy than Michigan.
I recognize that not every patron wants to dine around dogs, even outside. (I don’t have a dog, by the way). So Ohio could follow the lead of other states and allow restaurants the option of allowing it or not, just as they choose whether to be quiet or loud, Chinese or Mediterranean, child-friendly or adult-oriented. Customers will pick what they prefer.
To be sure, the dog ban is widely ignored. “Pups on the Patio” or similarly named events are advertised all over
the state. Still, they violate the Ohio Uniform Food Safety Code.
The code allows service dogs and police dogs in restaurants. It also allows “edible fish or decorative fish in aquariums, shellfish or crustacea on ice or under refrigeration, and shellfish and crustacea in display tank systems.”
No other animals are permitted. (I’m pretty sure this means that the tropical bird that once inhabited the late, great Kahiki restaurant on E. Broad Street was an outlaw.)
Policing the presence of dogs on a patio sounds like a Columbus-y thing to do (the town likes to keep
things orderly), but the Health Department says it can’t choose to ignore complaints.
“We are the agent of the state, and thus charged with enforcing these regulations,” spokesman Jose Rodriguez said. “The state will actually survey us periodically to assure that we are appropriately enforcing this code.”
Well, then the state needs better things to do.
People sleep with dogs, take them to work and enroll them in play groups. It seems odd to retain an ancient injunction against allowing them within sight of a plate of spaghetti.