My question involves civil rights in the State of: California
Good afternoon everyone,
I own an ice cream shop in Los Angeles, and my establishment is very popular with local middle school students especially after summer school classes let out. A couple of times before I had individuals come in with service dogs and every time the animals had one of those vests on, .
Yesterday a patron walked with with a German Shepard, no vest or a tag and started to walk towards the seating area, full of teens at that moment. I approached him and asked if the dog was a service animal. The patron stated that it is and he must be permitted to take his dog everywhere he wishes or else he'll report me. Thankfully, there were no free seats that moment and he paid for his ice cream and left without further fuss.
I am really concerned if something like this happens again, I have to take a patron's word for it and if the dog ends up biting any of my other customers I may be held responsible as the business owner.
Obviously i don't want to deny service to any handicapped people, with or without service animals, but I really feel like I am between a rock and a hard place.
My question is this: is my act of goodwill and compliance to the law by permitting anyone who claims to have a service animal into my business in any way protects me from liability for injury caused by that alleged service animal to my other customers? Thank you in advance!

