In just over a week, Victoria Nolan has gone from winning silver at the World Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia, to being told she and her guide dog weren’t welcome at an Esso station.
The 36-year-old, who has lost all but three per cent of her vision to a degenerative eye disease, was with her guide dog and following her husband, Eamonn, into an Esso station with a coffee outlet at O’Connor Drive and Coxwell Avenue on Sunday when she heard a man shouting at her to leave.
“He started yelling, saying ‘You can’t come in here, there’s no pets allowed in here,’” recalled Nolan, who is a member of the adaptive or Paralympic Canadian rowing team that won a silver medal at the world championships that ended Sept. 4.
She says she told the Esso employee “This isn’t a pet, it’s a guide dog and he said, ‘I don’t care’” and told her to get out.
“I was shocked … he was so angry and hostile,” said Nolan. “He really wasn’t interested in what I said.”
An Esso spokesperson said it was looking into the matter.
“This is a regrettable incident,” said Laura Bishop, a spokesperson for Imperial Oil, which owns Esso.
“What I can tell you is our retailers are instructed to allow service dogs on our retail sites and ... convenience stores. We cannot allow animals that are not service animals into our stores due to health regulations.”
The 36-year-old, who has lost all but three per cent of her vision to a degenerative eye disease, was with her guide dog and following her husband, Eamonn, into an Esso station with a coffee outlet at O’Connor Drive and Coxwell Avenue on Sunday when she heard a man shouting at her to leave.
“He started yelling, saying ‘You can’t come in here, there’s no pets allowed in here,’” recalled Nolan, who is a member of the adaptive or Paralympic Canadian rowing team that won a silver medal at the world championships that ended Sept. 4.
She says she told the Esso employee “This isn’t a pet, it’s a guide dog and he said, ‘I don’t care’” and told her to get out.
“I was shocked … he was so angry and hostile,” said Nolan. “He really wasn’t interested in what I said.”
An Esso spokesperson said it was looking into the matter.
“This is a regrettable incident,” said Laura Bishop, a spokesperson for Imperial Oil, which owns Esso.
“What I can tell you is our retailers are instructed to allow service dogs on our retail sites and ... convenience stores. We cannot allow animals that are not service animals into our stores due to health regulations.”
