 Aloha and welcome to Business in Hawai'i with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30, broadcasting from the downtown studios of Think Tech Hawai'i and Pioneer Plaza in beautiful Halloween of Hawai'i. We're a show that focuses on success stories, generally in business or the individuals, the owners. There are challenges in Hawai'i, but there are a number of companies that have overcome those challenges and are successful. Today we're kind of breaking from our regular format a little bit. We do have a professional in the studio today that's going to be sharing some information that is very important to all businesses in Hawai'i and throughout the country for that matter. We're going to be talking about the American with Disabilities Act and then also about service dogs. And there's a lot of good, useful information that we're going to be sharing. And it's going to be done in a slide presentation format right around the break. We're going to be switching into that slide presentation that's going to, again, be very useful information for all businesses to know. But I'd like to introduce my guest today, Lucy Miller, who has a BA in Political Science, has a Master's in Special Education Administration and Supervision, and has a PhD in Educational Psychology. And she uses all of those degrees and all of her experience all the way up until just actually, I think, last week. So one of Lucy's passions, besides teaching and being a lifetime career as a counselor and a therapist, has been in a civil rights area, especially with the American with Disabilities Act. And the ADA was actually passed in 1990, is that right? So can you share a little bit more information about the ADA? Sure. The ADA was passed in 1990, but its roots really began in the 1960s with the civil rights, actually even before then. In 1954, there was a Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in the schools in America. And we know how that keeps playing itself out over and over. But then in 1964, there was a Civil Rights Act, which also took quite a while. But then people with disabilities started saying, well, we need equal rights, too. And they were faced with discrimination a lot, and they wanted more protection under the law. So in the late 1970s, the deaf organizations began to join the rest of the organizations for various people with disabilities, including blind and mobility and others, and wanted equal opportunities to remove a few barriers and make accommodations. And there were a number of meetings that took place with legislators, and the key sponsors of the act in the legislature, all senators at that time, Tom Harkins, who was a senator from Iowa who had a deaf brother, Senator Bob Doyle, who actually ran the president one time, and Senator Dan Inouye from Hawaii, and Senator Ted Kennedy, who became the most important one, whose sister had a developmental disability. So it gets to be personal, and this really created it, and of course there was a lot of goings and, you know, a lot of discussion going on, a lot of debate going on. Yeah, and push backs and so on. But finally, the legislator passed the law, and the president, who at that time was a Republican president, even though most civil rights were associated with Democrats, but he signed it into law in 1990. Very good. I guess there's a lot of information available out in the public today, and one of the more common places to go is the ADA.gov. That's right. Right, and what would somebody find there if they went there to look around? They would find what, in 1990, the law took up about 20 pounds of paper in five different volumes, and now it's all on the ADA.gov website, and it's up to date. It has had to be, you know, completely renewed. And this actually is very broad. I mean, the ADA legislation actually has helped very many people throughout the country, the world for that matter. Right. And many other countries in the world have also joined in, and it provides employment, equal opportunities for employment, which was a huge problem for me when I was younger. And state and local government, but most important for the purpose of this show and this discussion is public accommodations to private businesses. Right. And so the access, and then there's telecommunication and there's transportation. And how many people, Dr. Miller, do you think are affected by the ADA? Directly about one out of five have a disability that we find under law, which then you, exactly, all of us have someone close to us in our family with a disability. Right. And that's, I think, everybody that has a large family has got probably more than one person that has some kind of a challenge that they have to deal with. That's right. And who are these people? I mean, I know that there's a lot of people out there, you know, 20% of the population, but, you know, can you just describe a little bit about, you know, what the typical people are that have benefited from this? Yeah. They're defined by law as those who have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, which includes work, going from one place to another. And, of course, the most obvious that people began to notice were curb cuts and signals for the blind and ramps. Right. And so this could be vision. This could be hearing. It can be mobility with the legs or even the arms. Right. What about, you know, just for my own information, what about, you know, other types of maybe not visible? I mean, if they have a bad heart and they might have some other issues that they can't exert themselves. I mean, there's other things that may not be obvious, but just a little debilitating. That's correct. There are many, many that are not obvious at first. And my case being deaf is not obvious unless you try to get my attention and try to talk to me. And I don't even know it. That's, you know, I've, we can joke about some of the times where I've been deaf when my wife tries to talk to me, too. But, but no, I, you know, it's no joking matter. I mean, there are disabilities that need to be addressed. And I think it's important for businesses to have an understanding of what the rules and regulations are and what their responsibilities are. Right. And another group is civil policy, which is developmental. And oftentimes police have shocked people with disabilities, but because they thought they were drunk, because they walk funny. They misinterpreted. I've been at the wrong end of a gun more than once because somebody was calling it me to stop or whatever. Yes. Well, there's, I guess, you know, and that's where we're going to talk a little bit about the presentation today is, you know, there's one way of helping people that have, you know, hearing this challenge. But there's others, too. There's some revisions that happened in 2010, about 20 years after the original legislation. Yeah. And that was a major piece of legislation because when they first started, they really didn't know how it was going to end up. And they, first of all, for example, with the service dogs, they said, service animals so people could have birds and snakes and all sorts of things and say, this is my service animal. And it's now been, as of 2010, it has been clarified they have to be dogs. Okay. And I think that's an important point for people to remember and for businesses is it, you know, it is maybe originally started in a generic term of animals, but they realize that maybe that was not helpful and they needed to fix that. So they actually did actual legislation that made a very specific that it had to be a dog. Yeah. So much of it was clarification. That's good. And enforcement. There's quite a few things and they're now, of course, working hard on the next revision. And do you have any idea what that might be? I certainly do know some of it because I've been on committees working on it. Can you share some of what the newest revision might be? Well, one of, in terms of technology, captions for so many people who can't hear well enough and watch television. And then now people are using computers and YouTube and all of that. And they're working really hard trying to keep up with the technology because what keeps happening is they find loopholes. And then we have to keep plugging the loopholes. You know, I guess there's always going to be people out there that are trying to figure where there might be an opportunity or something that they might be able to take advantage of. Right. And much of it will be fine through courts having to, I'll have to say the most egregious cases have been mostly in the southern states based on the record in civil rights in general. I see. And you know what's interesting, and I know you're very modest, but you've actually been involved in this, not only within the state, but also you've been involved at the national level too, haven't you? Yeah. Yeah. So you're, and I remember many years ago, and I've known you for a while, but I remember you used to speak at some conventions and so you were on a speaking circuit for a while. Yeah. So you've got local and national experience at dealing with this. So I think your credentials are impeccable. You know, it's so fortunate to have you on the show. What I'd like to do now is, you know, we kind of laid the ground work, you know, for a service dog type presentation. What I'd like to do is go on a quick break for one minute, and then when we come back, we'll go into the slide presentation that's going to talk a little bit about, you know, service dogs in general and what a business can and cannot do and what they should be doing and that sort of thing. So please be patient. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to be back in about one minute. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We'll see you in about a minute. Aloha, Kako. I'm Marcia Joyner, and I'm inviting you to navigate the journey. We are discussing the end of life options, and we would really love to have you every Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. Right here. My name is Mark Schlaufe, and I'm the host of Law Across the Sea. And Law Across the Sea is a program that brings attorneys who have traveled across the sea and live in Hawaii or are staying in Hawaii for a time to talk about their travels, where they're from, where they're going, and bring it all together because really we're all connected some way although we travel across the sea. So I hope that you'll tune in and watch our program. Thank you very much. Aloha, and welcome back to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're here today talking with Dr. Lucy Miller about the ADA and then also service dogs. And we're going to have a little slide presentation in the second half of the show today to just try and create a higher level of awareness for business owners that are dealing with service dogs and what to look for and what they can and cannot do. So I'd like to ask that the first slide be shown on the screen. And Dr. Miller, you had some opening comments. Yes. As you see, the subtitle is How You Can Snip Out the Baker. Think of parking, not yet. The parking, when the special parking sites were developed. Right, the handicapped parking. And handicapped parking, a lot of people go, oh, I'll just zip in here for my convenience. And they're depriving the person who needs it. Right. And the same now with service animals. People have passed, oh, I get passed my dog off as a service dog. And people are a little, and they are a distraction and they are not service dogs. And we're going to learn more about how we deal with that. Well, and I know that from the service dogs that I've seen in the past, particularly with yours, they're very disciplined and very well behaved. And I've always been impressed with that. But we might want to just go to the ADA rules for just a second, which would be slide number two. Very good. Yes. This is about service dogs. There's two rules under the ADA. The most important one, the person must have a disability. And the dog must be trained for specific tasks that help the person with a disability. Right. And the disabilities, again, we have to be very careful. They may not be very obvious. But what are the questions that you are allowed to ask somebody if they tried to bring a service dog into the establishment? Yeah, this is really important because people have been not sure what they were allowed to ask. Is your dog a service dog? By law, they don't have to wear a best. But it's helpful if they do. But you can buy a best online without any need. There's a lot of scams with that. So is your dog a service dog? And what has the dog been trained to do for you? Right. And training is very important. And how does a person find a trained service dog? There are special programs for most service dogs, especially on the mainland. On Hawaii, there are two known goods agencies. One is called Fido and the other is called Assistant Dog. One is on Maui, one is on the north shore of Oahu. None on the island where I'm from, and none for hearing dogs. And even so, when I've been on panels in Hawaii, people with service dogs, many of them have been brought in from mainland service training programs. But they are allowed to be homeschooled, as I call it. And I was going to ask you, how was your dog trained? My dog was trained by me. I had some help. I had some consultation with Canine Program. And I also read about 25 books on the subject. And I also belonged to online training groups. And some of those groups have two or three hundred just for dogs for the deaf. Because there just aren't that many. One thing, they need to know sign language, and not every dog does, and not every program does. So that was something you taught your dog sign language. I don't want to refer to Muffin as a dog. Your dog's name is Muffin. And she's very intelligent, very bright. And so you taught Muffin how to do sign. Well, she can't sign, but she can understand sign. She has her own way of signing. And sometimes she thinks I'm kind of stupid because I'm not understanding what she's trying to do. Well, other than to be able to understand you signing with her, what else have you trained her to do? Well, she has specifically been trained. And this, again, is where she is different from other types of disability. She has to make decisions on her own what I need to know and what I don't need to know. And if people are yelling at each other across the room, I don't need to know that. But if somebody is calling me, I need to know that. And so she has been trained to that. And Sirens, where there are Sirens, and she needs to be able to tell me and when somebody's knocking at the door or ringing a certain kind of bell, she lets me know. Well, like a phone. If the phone rings, she lets you know when that's ringing. Actually, she doesn't. She doesn't. Because I so often ignore the phone anyway. But she does with a certain type of sound on my cell phone for text messages. Oh, very good. And she also traffic noises. She's learned to get me out of the way when I didn't see or hear her. So she's always looking out for your best interests. Right. That's very good. And we were talking a little bit about that during lunch. Some of her abilities are almost inherent in her personality. I mean, some things that she does, you haven't really had to train her. She's always looking out for you and keeping you from being hurt. Right. And lavadoodles were originally meant to be service dogs. They combined two of the brightest dogs. Plus the poodle part of her, she is a hot knot. People don't have allergies to her. So they can't use that. She doesn't shed. So I was looking for somebody, a dog that would be friendly, not too friendly. Right. We're going to show a couple more slides here. The next slide is going to be... Oh, this one is important. The question you can ask, what's your disability? I already said is your dog a service dog. What's your disability can be very intrusive. We've already talked about some are not that obvious and some have stigma attached to them. Right. And the other one is, prove it to service dogs. And there's no way that one set of criteria can prove it. So you can buy fake certification papers. You can buy vests online, but they are not. Yeah, they're not real. But very good. You know, we have another service dog, I guess, discipline under control. Right. You know, that's an important part, because you can't take them into a restaurant, for example, or some other type of public place and have them become a nuisance. Right. And, you know, if they do, you can ask them to leave. Yes, you can. You know, and that's an important piece. And then, comfort dogs are not service dogs. And that is made very explicit under the ADA rules. Right. So comfort dogs are just little cute pets. Right. I mean, I can have a picture of my wife to give me comfort in that state. That'll work too. And they cannot pose any kind of safety or health threat to others. And that's part of the public access. They are not. And then the next slide will show that they can't be barking at people and they can't be disrupted. Right. You know right away. In fact, if Muffin were to be barking, you could ask me to leave. Would you mind bringing Muffin into the picture so we can get a look at her? Muffin? Where is she? That's it. All right. Here's Muffin. All right. There she is. Hey, Muffin. Yeah. Good to see you. Yes. Ooh. So she's a, as you can tell, she was very well-behaved, sleeping under the table at Dr. Miller's feet. And you didn't even know she was there until we asked her to come up. And that's typical of what a service dog is supposed to do. That's right. And so if there is a service dog in the restaurant or the establishment, excuse me, that is being aggressive or being noisy or disruptive, they're certainly within their rights. The business owners are within their rights to ask them to leave. Right. And if a person says, oh, well, that's my service dog, you can't do that, you can be close to 100% sure that's a fake. And you don't put them in shopping carts. Right. And you don't let them sit at the table in restaurants. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Even if they do have them, they'll be able to. And the correct position is discreetly under the table just as Muffin is doing. Right. And that seems to be natural for Muffin, that she's just always, she's just there. She was trained to be that way. That's, well, natural, meaning that she was trained and it seems to be so natural that she does it automatically. Yeah, that's true. You know, it's great. You know, and I guess the next slide. Yeah, obviously they don't do that. Although one time she got sick to her stomach and that happened at Costco. Right. But that's an anomaly that probably didn't happen. I got something to wipe it up with and they were fine with that. That can happen to any of us. Right. And then I guess we got two more important things here. A real service dog team must never be separated. You don't tell that person to leave the dog outside or one time at the airport, they separated us during the TSA and that is not okay. Right. You actually brought that to the attention of some people. Yes, I did. To Homeland Security Administration. Yes. And they responded. And they responded and they investigated and the tape showing it mysteriously disappeared. That must be the Russians. Yeah. And a service dog should never be distracted from doing its job. Right. And now that's, I think that's an important one to remember too. You know, service dogs are cute. You know, they're intelligent. They're smart. They're smart looking. But they need to be doing a job. Right. And they need to be taking care of the person that they've been assigned to or working with. But they're not there to make things. Exactly. And you shouldn't go up and pet them or play with them because they're on duty. Right. And the other part is that they, you know, you don't pay attention to it. It's just like if I'm using a cane or a crutches or a wheelchair, it's part of me. Mm-hmm. Now, and that's important because, you know, you need to let the dog do its job, do its duty. Yes. And you don't want to... And if somebody brings in a fake dog who rushes up to him up, and that's just very distracting. Well... And this is why those of us with real service dogs really want to get the fakers out of business. Right. And that's very interesting. And I guess this is our last slide. Yes, it is. And I put a...picked one with a halo because they're always well-behaved in public. They also are always well-groomed and clean and not smelly and don't drool. So there's a lot of reasons why some breeds do not make good service dogs. Now, we've got about 30 seconds left, so we're going to be closing. But, you know, you're... You know, in our opening, we talked a little bit about all of your experience. You've been doing this a long time. You've just officially retired, but you're not done working. You're still doing some stuff. Well, yeah. This is my post retirement. I'm still on board. I just no longer have a private practice that ended on the 35th of December, officially. So you've been kind of out of private practice for a whole four or five days now. That's right. And during those four or five days, I got several referrals. I had to turn down. Well, maybe life will get simpler for you now. You'll have to deal with some things. I mostly had jobs I really, really liked. You're very fortunate. Thank you very much, Dr. Miller, for being on the show today. I hope this was educational to our listeners. This is Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30. We highlight successful stories in Hawaii about businesses and their owners. And occasionally, we have educational programs to talk a little bit about the topics that would be beneficial to businesses in Hawaii. Today, we were very fortunate to have Dr. Miller with us today to talk about the ADA at Service Dogs. Thank you again. And until next week, aloha.