Page 12 - IAV Digital Magazine #491

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Brooklyn Man Registers Beer As Emotional Support Animal
By Zachary Kussin
It’s brews you can use.
Brooklyn resident Floyd Hayes, 47, registered a pint of beer as an emotional support animal with the USA Service Dog Registration in December, accord ing to Ale Street News.
Brooklyn Paper reports that Hayes aims to use the certifica- tion to carry his beverage of choice — like, say, a seasonal IPA — on public transit.
“I travel from upstate to Brooklyn a lot, and on the bus
they say it’s a fed- eral crime to smoke or have an alcoholic bever- age unless by prior written con- test, and I always wondered where you get that con- sent,” Hayes, a creative director originally from England, told the publication. “Not that I’m an alco-
holic,” he added.
But Hayes tells The Post he sim- ply wants to see if this method will work.
“It was really just . . . an experiment,” he says, adding that it was a light- hearted move. “I’m not trying to make light on
anybody who has any emotional issues.”
Hayes took to the service dog regis- tration website to enter his beer as an emotional sup- port dog. He ticked off “No Training Needed” as the training status of the dog and put that it
was to help with his “Social Anxiety Disorder.”
“I don’t mean it in a heady mental health manner,” the Clinton Hill resident told the Brooklyn Paper. “More if you go to a party, and want to break the ice.”
But an unidenti-
fied USA Service Dog Registration employee told the paper that Hayes wouldn’t have much luck with his goal to com- mute with a six pack in tow.
“He can register his beer all day long, it’s not going to get him any- where,” she said — adding that the use of an emo- tional support ani- mal on transit or in a business requires medical approval.
But so far, Hayes tells The Post, so good. While wait- ing for the bus at a Brooklyn stop yesterday, he says, he had a glass of beer in hand.
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