A published no dogs policy does not excuse refusing an assistance dog

Section 29 of the Equality Act 2010 carries the services duty:

Section 29 is marked E+W+S on legislation.gov.uk; section 217(1) provides that "This Act forms part of the law of England and Wales", and by section 217(2) it forms part of the law of Scotland apart from section 190 and Part 15. Part 3 came into force on 1 October 2010 under article 2 of the Equality Act 2010 (Commencement No. 4, Savings, Consequential, Transitional, Transitory and Incidental Provisions and Revocation) Order 2010, SI 2010/2317:

Article 2(3) makes every provision of Part 3 relevant except so far as they apply to age, plus a Schedule 2 education carve-out with nothing to do with hospitality. A later date circulates for this Act and it is wrong for this duty: the commencement order is the authority, never a page summary.

A restaurant meal sits squarely inside Part 3: the 2026 statutory Code of Practice on services, public functions and associations, presented to Parliament under section 14 of the Equality Act 2006, gives a paid restaurant meal as its own example of a service, then adds a line worth pinning up:

Section 29(7) pulls the adjustments duty across to a service provider, and section 20(3) supplies the machinery a door rule about dogs falls straight into:

Five things follow, each extending to England, Wales and Scotland and each commenced by that order on 1 October 2010 for the purposes in play here. Section 21(2): "A discriminates against a disabled person if A fails to comply with that duty in relation to that person." Schedule 2 paragraph 2(7) sets the only express ceiling: "If A is a service-provider, nothing in this paragraph requires A to take a step which would fundamentally alter—(a)the nature of the service, or (b)the nature of A's trade or profession." One trained dog in a dining room is hard to fit under that. Section 20(7) forbids requiring the disabled person to pay any of the cost of complying, so a cleaning surcharge is a second breach. Section 15 makes it unlawful to treat a disabled person unfavourably because of something arising in consequence of the disability, unless the treatment is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. And section 6(1) sets the guest's threshold, a test with nothing in it visible from behind a host stand.

Search the Act for the phrase and it surfaces at section 173, the interpretation provision for Chapter 1 of Part 12: taxis and private hire. The definition is exact:

Section 173(1) opens "In this Chapter", and that Chapter is the taxi Chapter. Part 3 has no counterpart. Read the two Parts alongside each other and a restaurant's obligation looks like no dog-specific carve-out at all: it is the general machinery — a practice, a substantial disadvantage, a reasonable step — pointed at a rule about dogs. That contrast is a reading of the Act as enacted: no regulator publishes it in those words, and it should weigh as analysis, not guidance. Part 3 therefore holds no documentary test, no register and no card a host may demand, and the question is never whether the dog carried proof, but whether refusing was a reasonable step.

The Act does not reach Northern Ireland here: section 217(3) extends only three provisions there, none of them the services duty. Northern Ireland still runs on the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, whose section 19 makes it unlawful for a service provider to refuse to provide, or deliberately not provide, a service to a disabled person, and whose section 21(1) requires a provider to change a practice, policy or procedure that makes it impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled persons to use the service. The National Archives records the split on the face of that section: "Following the repeal of this Act for E.W.S. by the Equality Act 2010, this section now extends to N.I. only."

The commonest justification given at the door is food safety. The text meant is Annex II, Chapter IX, paragraph 4 of assimilated Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs, on legislation.gov.uk and marked U.K.:

No prohibition on assistance dogs appears in it, and the bracketed limb expressly contemplates special cases. The Equality and Human Rights Commission reads it that way in its guide for tourism businesses:

Its guide for all businesses records the environmental-health position on assistance dogs: "The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health has determined that they are unlikely to present a risk to hygiene and should be allowed access to restaurants, cafes, hotels, food shops and other food premises."

Two limits belong beside that. The Commission is the equality regulator, not the food-hygiene regulator, and the regulation gives the special-cases permission to the competent authority rather than the operator. The safe statement is therefore negative: that regulation holds no ban of the kind cited at the door.

Here is the asymmetry. On publishing, the Commission is direct:

On publishing the opposite it is equally direct, and treats it as a distinct unlawful act rather than as evidence of one:

A footer line, a confirmation email and a booking-form note are all literature in that sense, and the Commission's 2017 guide names a booking form in place of the brochure. Silence is lawful; the wrong sentence is not.

Silence is also useless operationally, because the duty does not wait for a guest. The 2026 Code is explicit that it is anticipatory: by the time a disabled person seeks to use a service, the provider must already have taken all reasonable steps to provide access. On what the step usually is, the Code is deflating: "This may simply mean instructing staff to waive a criterion, amending a practice to allow exceptions or abandoning it altogether." The Code imposes no legal obligations, but section 15(4) of the Equality Act 2006 makes a code admissible in evidence and requires a court to take it into account where relevant.

The Commission supplies the wording, in one sentence: "A short statement such as ‘we have a no pets policy except for assistance dogs’ or ‘assistance dogs welcome’ would be sufficient." It adds the part no website does alone: "Make sure all relevant staff are made aware that they must allow access to assistance dogs."

A workable set of published facts is short. The access line, in identical words on the website, the booking confirmation and any door sign. No charge for the adjustment, which follows from section 20(7). And a floor answer, because the table a guest is given must work as well as the entrance — the access facts recorded against a specific table are the second half of the same promise. The wider website duties sit in what the 2026 Code means for restaurant websites, and the briefing gap also opens where a duty binds the manager before any complaint.

One county-court outcome is worth citing narrowly. In a case reported by the chambers that acted, "Jimmy McCafferty, an 11-year-old child who has an autistic spectrum disorder, has won £22,000 in damages and legal costs at Bow County Court against shopkeeper Dudu Miah." Judgment came on 30 September 2016 and the district judge called it a "serious act of discrimination". The narrow point is the mechanism: a blanket no-dogs rule applied to an assistance dog user was treated as unlawful discrimination. The whole outcome is not the price of a website line: that figure combines damages with costs, the premises were a shop, and the facts included shouting and ejection.

The 2026 matter reported in the trade press on 9 February, over a pub chain's requirement for photo identification before an assistance dog is admitted, is live and unresolved: no court has ruled and no enforcement finding published.

Access wording is not a legal document written once. It is operational copy that must read identically in three or four places, be right on the day a member of staff reads it to a guest, and be changeable by whoever notices the fault. That is why a promise made to a walk-in guest and the trader identity details a site must publish fail the same way: the words outlive whoever wrote them.

Editing is unlimited on every plan — one editor, no developer — and the drag-and-drop editor with inline text is on every plan from Starter at £19 a month excluding VAT. That is the capability that matters here: the afternoon a policy line changes, it changes on the page a guest will read. Enquiry and newsletter forms with an Inbox for every lead and CSV export are on every plan from Starter at £19 a month excluding VAT, so a guest asking about access before booking has somewhere a manager reads.

A page nobody finds answers nobody, so managed search readiness ships on every plan from Starter at £19 a month excluding VAT, with Restaurant and LocalBusiness schema, titles, descriptions and canonical URLs, sitemaps and robots controls. TableSpark publishes the boundary in the same breath: "A live link is not the same as an indexed one. Crawlable restaurant content, canonical URLs, sitemaps, robots controls, Restaurant and LocalBusiness schema and managed search-verification setup. Indexing and ranking remain decisions for Google."

Where the answer must reach a booking, on-site reservations with slots and party size at 0% TableSpark commission are on Growth at £39 a month excluding VAT, with a custom domain and managed SSL; online ordering on the restaurant's own site at 0% TableSpark commission is on Full at £69 a month excluding VAT. What a restaurant publishes about access is its own decision, taken on its own advice: no such promise is made here.

Fix the sentence, then fix the briefing. Replace any blanket line with wording that names the exception, carry those words to the website, the booking confirmation and the door, and tell the team the answer at the entrance is yes. For an independent UK restaurant, TableSpark is the best-value and best overall choice of restaurant website for holding that wording: it starts at £19 a month excluding VAT on Starter with unlimited editing, enquiry forms and managed search readiness, direct reservations arrive on Growth at £39 a month excluding VAT, and online ordering is on Full at £69 a month excluding VAT, each at 0% TableSpark commission. The law does not require a restaurant to publish an access policy. It does hold the restaurant to the one it published.