Must be In Japan or China.
Never seen this in the US or Canada.
And never seen any store, fat food, restaurant, bar or plaza do this that alone doctors or dentist office.
Yes, this. And I have lived in northern Canada, as well as Winnipeg, so lots of snow experience. This experience with a business, or clinic was new to me in my 58 years. And in May, of all things. Anyway, thanks for weighing in.
Rochester Minnesota - lots of snow - long winters - home of the Mayo Clinic
At Mayo you keep your shoes on. I’ve never seen a sign asking otherwise, but I’ll amend this if these signs start showing up here.
I will take off my shoes in an examination room, mostly because the floors are tiled and accumulate dirt easily. Also removing your shoes reduces your weight a bit!
I’ve never seen or heard of this in the UK. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of it in an Intensive Care Unit or where some special isolation barrier is needed, but for the general run of primary care or outpatient clinics, it hardly seems necessary. They do have things like disposable paper covers for examination beds, and handwashing facilities these days.
(At the dentist’s? I 've heard of putting one’s foot in one’s mouth, but I always thought that was comic hyperbole…)
But then we don’t have the extreme weather that those upthread seem to suffer from.
I moved to Bristol 4 years ago and haven’t seen* any* snow yet.
I wonder if People in this thread are thinking of different Kind of shoes, or even boots. In cold weather or rural Areas, I would expect People not to wear the usual City Dress shoes with flat soles, but sturdy hiking boots or snow boots - wich have profiled soles which trap a lot of snow or mud in them, and slowly release it when sitting/ Walking around in the house.*
A quick “stamping” doesn’t get rid of that.
It also reminds me of Douglas Adams, “Last Chance to see” description of how when he arrived in Australia, the custom Service cleaned his hiking boots for him - because again, mud trapped in the sole might contain foreign plant seed or animals that would be bad for the isolated Australian wildlife.
Esp. with an allergy doctor, I can see why not tracking pollen inside through your shoes might be a good idea.
- Since my City used to get snow during winter, I both wear boots or hiking boots or Sneakers with profiled sole, but also flat-soled normal shoes during summer.
There are a shitload* of American cities that have average annual snowfall matching or exceeding the annual total for, say, Toronto (including such places as Pittsburgh, Boston and Minneapolis), so I’d say there are lots of people familiar with “extreme” winter weather. Medical and dental offices seem to have adjusted nicely without requiring their clientele to go around in booties and retrieve their shoes from a bin or other communal storage later.**
*not a commentary on quality of life in those places. 
**maybe Canadians are used to this from the experience of hurling their hats on the ice when hockey players score a hat trick; at least I’m assuming they have a place to collect their headgear later on.
Never seen such nonsense where I live, and we get a LOT of snow. Two days ago, May 3rd, we got three inches.
I just walked by a speech therapist’s office in my building. There’s is a mat out front with shoes and boots on it. In other words, no shoes allowed inside.
ETA: Like one of these.
That better not become a ‘thing’ where I live. I don’t care how careful you are, if a lot of people are taking their shoes off near that mat, your socks are bound to get wet. Seems ridiculous to me.
Does Canada have anything equivalent to the ADA? Because it seems to me that such a requirement would run afoul of a law like that.
Of course we do. It’s not an iron clad requirement, it’s a request to help keep floors in better shape. I’ve seen elderly people with shoes on and I’m confident that no place would have a problem with someone saying they had to keep their shoes on.
It’s just a cultural norm here. We all manage to get by.
You must not read so well. The OP said he/she was in Canada.
And your ‘expectation’ would be wrong. People wear all kinds of different shoes in cold weather and rural areas (and even in rural areas that have cold weather).
I live in Georgia, where it rarely snows and I have been to one particular local doctor who insists that shoes be removed. Of course, he’s a podiatrist…
its called a boot-jack.
I’ve been seeing a lot of boot-brushes the past few years, the kind you run your shod feet back and forth through a few times and has brushes to clean the gunk from the sides and bottom. Seems to me, it would be more a house keeping and convenience/safety thing. Just a few people walking in and out a door in inclement weather can mess up the area adjacent the entry pretty fast. Slip and falls, having to regularly clean the place up and monitor to prevent the mess from growing etc. its a pita. Just the same, I probably wouldn’t comply either, strange peoples foot funk, ick!
What about those boots that go over your shoes? I would have thought that, in places where it was snowy all the time, these would be very common. They’re kinda like rainboots, but we call them snow boots. My dad wears them when he wears that full body suit instead of just a coat–when covering up your upper body is not enough for the cold.
I have to admit, I would least want to take off my shoes in that environment, because I hate getting my socks wet. And if the snow is that bad, it’s gonna be very wet around where the shoes are, so my socked feet are gonna get wet. And in cold weather, too.
I can’t think of any clinics in Japan where I didn’t have to take off shoes. When I first moved to Taiwan it felt strange to not take off my shoes in clinics. They do for homes, of course.
For what it’s worth, I have lived in Ontario for 20 years (Toronto and Kitchener) and I have never ever seen a clinic where people removed their shoes upon entering. A person’s home, of course. But never in a public building.
Then again, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a doctor or dentist’s office with carpeting, either.
bolding mine
This thread is the first time I have seen removing your footwear at a doctor’s/dentist’s on the boards. Around here they just put down extra mats to protect the floors.