- Under New Mexico law, only genuine service animals are allowed inside restaurants.
- A 2011 state law made it legal for pet owners to have their animals accompany them in outdoor dining environments.
- Dozens, if not hundreds, of restaurants across New Mexico welcome pets on their patio.
It may not be the most prominent section on the New Mexico Restaurant Association’s website, but the page dealing with state law regarding service animals and pets in restaurants draws an inordinate amount of traffic, according to the organization’s leader.
Carol Wight, the chief executive officer of the New Mexico Restaurant Association (NMRA), an Albuquerque-based organization that advocates on behalf of the industry and offers a variety of training opportunities, said the page draws somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 views a year — an indication of the significance of the issue to restaurant owners and managers in New Mexico.
That’s part of the reason Wight felt compelled to write an op-ed for newspapers across the state in late March addressing what she described as a growing issue in the state — the presence of nonservice dogs in restaurants. Wight maintains that a growing number of pet owners across New Mexico are placing restaurant owners and managers in a difficult position by trying to bring dogs and other creatures that are not true service animals into restaurants to dine with them, leaving those restaurateurs in jeopardy of being sanctioned by state health officials.