Margate Pet Shop owner told me I am not allowed in her shop in my wheelchair

[Stepheninleeds]

I can understand you not wanting to take legal action. If that is your choice I support that. I would however, ask you to consider one thing. What if this happens again, somewhere else? It is not always easy to fight, & we should not have to. You have rights under the Equality (Disability) Act 2010, use those rights. You have as much right as anyone to go anywhere. I personally an sick to death of being treated like a leper or a lazy person (They use other words rather than person). You do not have to fight it, but if you do it would not be alone. There are disabled charities & groups, equality & human rights groups, that would help you. Just a thought.

[phyzzezee]

I still think your local councillors would be interested to know about this and may have a word with the shop owner on your behalf.

[andypandy]

Thanks to everyone in the Yourable forum who is taking the time to reply with offers of advice and support. I am gradually working through most of these (or rather my Mum is trying), because my Stroke also left me with speech and memory difficulties, so I rely on my Carer (who is my Mum) to help me with this. I still feel that I do not want to take this down a legal route or "be the news" in the local paper and the petshop probable advertises in the local news paper, so the papers are unlikely to want to "bite the hand that feeds them" :-( My Mum has now talked to the CAB and they said that as we have already discussed this with the Paw Prince petshop owner and she has continued to ignored us, then our next step should be to send her a Registered letter explaining the issue and say that I feel I have a complaint on human rights grounds and that I feel she has breached my human rights, then, ask for a response to my complaint. ... The CAB also suggested that, if the shop is a member of the local Chamber of Commerce or is a member of a trade association (I don't know how we find that out) then we might want to send them a copy of my complaint letter. But, if this fails to bring about the required response then we would need to reconsider taking legal action. Which I don't want.....I just want someone who has some sort of authority to go to her and warn her that she is breaking the law by refusing me access into her shop just because I'm in a wheelchair, and can get an appology from her.

Hello Christine

Thanks for keeping us up to date.

I cant believe the rudeness of this shopkeeper. If I was you I would go public with this story, but of course if thats not what you want to do that understandable. I cannot see that just because the shop owner MAY advertise with the paper it would affect your story in anyway. We have more than one local paper here, do you ?

How about contacting your local radio station ?

It does depend on how far YOU want to go. Of course you don't have to do anything if that is what YOU choose.

Good luck, please let us know how you get on

[Christine]

My Mum, who is acting as my advocate, has now written and sent the registered letter to the shop keeper, saying that I feel she has breeched my human rights and that I also feel that I have a complaint against her on human rights grounds and that I would like a response from her to my complaint. So now we have to wait to see what will happen, I am hoping for an apology but I won't hold my breath as the shop keeper doesn't seem to think that she is doing anything wrong!
We have also contacted our MP Laura Sandys through her website, and sent the information for her to read. We have sent a simular letter to the Mayor of Margate, Iris Johnston, also pointing out to her that as Margate has THE most run down High Street in Britain, Margate shops should welcome disabled and elderly customers and if they won't accomadate them, then they dont deserve the support and loyalty of their customers.
Hopefully we will get a decent reply from one of the above soon. We still have had no acknowledgment of our email to Headway sent 1st Sep or the letter to Kentonline sent 8th Oct. In fact, Yourable were the first people that replied to us. Thanks everyone.

[Stepheninleeds]

Keep up the fight & the pressure. Someone may reply. She may not be the one, but you have given her the chance to. If you wish to take this further you can then show you have tried to resolve this. She cannot argue she did not know or did not understand. Well, actually, she can, as some always do.

I am glad this Forum is here, I think it has helped many.

[Christine]

At last, my Mum has received a reply from someone, we were begining to think that no one care about our complaint. We have recieved a letter from our Thanet MP Laura Sandys. She replied that she had read our email with great concern and that she was very sorry to hear of the problems that our family have been experiencing. She also said that she has written to the Chief Exec of Thanet District Council to ask her to look into the points we have raised and she has requested her support and assistance to resolve this issue.
We haven't heard from the Margate shop keeper who started all this off, she hasn't replied at all to the registered letter that my mum sent to her on the advise recieved from the Equalities Commision and the CAB, the letter obviously hasn't worry her at all. It doesn't look like I am going to get and appology.
We did send a copy of the registered letter to the Mayor of Margate, Iris Johnston, we thought she would be concerned about bad publicity for Margate town centre but her office hasn't even sent a confirmation of reciept. And lastly ... still no acknowledgment of our email sent to Headway or Kentonline, they just ignore us. We are just hoping that the Chief Exec of TDC really will help us to feel that we get some justice.

[Stepheninleeds]

This is good news, & a huge step forward. You can now take the next step if you wish too. You have given them chance to respond & resolve this, & they have not. The law is on your side.

[sea queen]

Sorry if I have missed this but do you not have a law Centre with designated officer for disability discrimination, if you have this person would take a lot of the stress for you by dealing with the letter writing and legal side.

[Christine]

We haven't heard anything from the Chief Exec of Thanet District Council who has been asked by Laura Sandys to give her support and assistance to resolve this issue.
We still haven't recieved a reply from the Margate shop keeper to the registered letter we sent her
We have now had a reply from Iris Johnston the Mayor of Margate, she had been away. She said that she went to visit the Margate shop keeper but seemed to get the same reaction from her that we had, the shopkeeper still thinks she is doing nothing wrong, the Mayor thought that she was not in a very good mood, my Mum told the Mayor that the shopkeeper is always in a bad mood if you ask her to move things for disabled access in her shop. The Mayor suggested that, she should accompany myself and my Mum on a visit to the shop sometime this week and see if between us, we can make her understand what she needs to move to allow access for my wheelchair ..... I am feeling very nervous about this and the way the shopkeeper is going to react to me and my Mum going back into her shop!
There isn't a Law Centre with designated officer for disability discrimination in our area, my Mum asked the CAB (and Headway and Kentonline both of who just ignore us with no acknowledgment to the our emails). It was the CAB that told us a phone number for an appointment, which just turned out to be a half hour free consultation and a 40 mile round trip with an ordinary lawyer. Even if we were to get a disability discrimination lawyer, we would have to travel to London a 150 mile round trip, and, isn't if difficult to get legal aid now days?
We wish that we could find someone to help take the stress away and help my Mum to deal with all the letter writing .... she has written loads of emails asking for someone to help and phoned loads of people and even set up a blog about what is happening as well as writing to this forum on my behalf.
Anyway, your support makes us feel less stressed than we would be about this. Thanks!

[Stepheninleeds]

Do not be nervous, this is good news. You have someone willing to help you with this. You are concerned how she will react, any reaction other than positive is against the law, & you will have a witness. It is a shame you have found it impossible to find other help. What is the point of having these laws if you cannot fight it when someone breaks them? Have you tried looking for a solicitor that handles such cases? Is there a local disabled charity, or even one of the national ones?