A woman from Marlow said she was left ‘in tears’ after she was ‘not allowed’ into a local Indian restaurant with her disability dog.

Jenny Tobin, 73, said she went to Tiger Garden on West Street on Tuesday evening (June 18) for dinner with a friend, alongside her trusty disability dog Scarlet, a black Cavapoo who “goes everywhere” with her.

However, what had been “a terrible day”, temporarily brightened by the intervention of a friend promising her “a nice meal out”, ended in tears for the 73-year-old when she was – in her words – “not let in” to the premises because of her dog.

Jenny said: “I’ve lived Marlow for years, many years before I became ill, and I’ve never been treated like I was on Tuesday night.

“We went into the restaurant, and the manager immediately refused us entry. I tried to show him the assistance badge that Scarlet always wears, but he didn’t want to know.

“I didn’t understand why we couldn’t go in – Scarlet is a small, very well-behaved dog – and I’m quite oversensitive about the fact that I’m not well anyway, so I was in tears.

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“I fainted in Higginson Park last summer when I was delivering flowers for my business, and when the paramedics took me to hospital, Scarlet came in the ambulance and sat right there on my chest.

“If I had a bigger or badly-behaved dog, I might have understood, but I have the pass saying that she’s an assistant dog. I don’t go anywhere without her, and she is such a lovely, friendly little thing. That’s why I felt so hurt, for both of us.”

For his part, Abdul Rob, owner of Tiger Garden, says he told Jenny that her dog couldn’t be in the main bar area “because of the allergy risk to other customers”.

He said it was implied that she could have sat in the restaurant’s garden, but she was too preoccupied “banging and shouting” about her discontent to “properly listen” to the management.

Abdul added: “Nobody wants to lose business – I wouldn’t intentionally lose a customer. But I have to stick to the rules, and we don’t allow pets. One of the people in the restaurant could have had an allergy, and that’s not good for business either.

“If this customer came back, she would be welcome to sit in the garden with her dog.”