Huh. I bow to your superior Google-fu. 
I really did search, but apparently not well.
Oh, come now–Paris Hilton’s thin, but she’s not that thin.
Did you know it is incredibly painful to shoot mashed potatoes out of your nose? I do now. Thanks Eve.
I agree with you. I’d be all like “Pet monkey! Sweet!”
Unless it’s romping through the food I think people are being overly squeamish.
All humor asside - I work with Service Dogs and all that…
This is a problem. ESAs (Emotional Support Animals) are NOT COVERED by the ADA. If her monkey is TASK TRAINED to mitigate her disability, then fine, he could be considered a helper animal under the ADA. Her condition also has to be truly disabling. In the case of psychiatric service animals, the jurisprudence isn’t as hot as people think it actually is.
I wouldn’t have issues with a helper monkey if it was truly needed. Unfortunately, a lot of psychiatric service animals are nothing more than ESAs. “Hugging” is not a task. “walking on leash” and “emotional support” are not tasks. (there is a huge problem and argument in the Service dog world over this - let’s not even get started).
Anyway. Go monkey go, says I. Again, assuming he’s task-trained and that the user is covered under the ADA and truly, legally considered disabled. This isn’t as easy to prove as one would think it is.
I see a problem with it, too. I mean, my dogs are Emotional Support Animals but I don’t get to take them to King’s Table. (Assuming I ever ate at King’s Table, which I don’t. I’m of the overly- fastidious, don’t-like warmed-over-food, never-consume-something-protected-by-a-sneeze-shield camp.) It begs the entire question of what constitues a disabling condition, or when a condition that may or may not be disabling actually becomes disabling. “Anxiety” covers a lot of ground.
And would I have trouble having a monkey in a restaurant? Yeah. I probably wouldn’t eat there.
Strangely, this is not the first case of this type I’ve heard about. I remember an article a while back about some college student with anxiety who wanted to be able to take her monkey to class for similar reasons.
In both cases, I have to say that I don’t like the idea. I feel that making it seem like “emotional support” is on the same level as a blind or paralyzed person requiring the help of a dog or monkey trivializes the struggles of people who have legitimate physical disabilities and truly can’t function without help.
If your anxiety is so disabling that you can’t function in public without “emotional support”, you should be bringing your therapist along, not an animal. I love animals myself (at the moment I have two cats, two fish tanks, and a parrot), but all the “Crazy Cat Ladies” out there are evidence in my view that the company of an animal isn’t the same as having a human being around to help you stay grounded in reality.
And maybe I am squeamish, because I do think that monkeys (who, as I understand it, are prone to many of the same illnesses humans are) are rather unsanitary to have around food. Then again, I feel that many humans don’t hold a high enough standard of hygiene for my liking, which is why I tend to avoid buffets in the first place. 
It’s hard for me to fathom how someone with anxiety disorder could be made less anxious by a bunch of people pointing and staring at her, not to mention the inevitable person who makes a comment in a voice calculated to be just audible to the subject of said comment. I avoid buffets so maybe my expectation that such a person would patronize one is unjustified.
But animals in restaurants don’t bother me if they behave themselves, and people in restaurants bother me if if they don’t.
It’s rich with comic potential.
Me: Hey, where did you get that ugly hog?
Anxious Lady: You idiot-it’s not a hog, it’s a monkey!
Me: Shaddup, ya hog. I asked the monkey a question. 
What he/she said.
That, and if I were looking for an animal to calm me and soothe my anxiety, I don’t think a monkey would be my first choice.
Plus, I don’t see that dining out is actually a "task"that this lady NEEDS to do. Yes, it might be enjoyable, but well, I don’t get to do it, precisely because even grocery shopping is an enormously major thing for me. AND it doesn’t seem to me that this monkey does any actual task other than being a comfort blanket, and a comfort blanket that might, as has been pointed out, actually end up causing more stress and anxiety. Sounds a bit like an attention-seeking, “entitled” person to me.
Apart from tht, of course, I think a monkey in a restaurant woudl be a lot better than some children.
And I doubt she hangs out at all-you-can-eat buffets, though I’d love to see her lose control at one and act like a pig.
Wasn’t that a ferret?
Personally, I’d love to see a monkey out and about anywhere. I like monkeys.
That said, as Elenfair says, Emotional Support Animals are not covered by the ADA and I don’t want to see them become covered. I’ve done some research on service animals (we were considering a service animal for our daughter, who has CP) and I really don’t like this trend towards ESAs. What I fear is a backlash against service animals.
Since the first seeing-eye dogs, service animals have become respected due to their obvious benefits to the disabled, and due to their excellent training. ESAs don’t have to recieve that same kind of extensive training – basically, an ESA is just some animal that the individual is using as a security blanket. And the benefit to the individual isn’t as clear, either – the benefit to a blind person having a seeing-eye dog to guide her across the street, or a disabled person having a service animal to open doors for him, is obvious. But with an ESA the training is all on the other side – the individual is trained to rely on the animal to ‘comfort’ him or her out in public. Which begs the question, why a monkey (or a dog, or a ferret)? Why not learn to self-comfort somehow instead, or use an inanimate object as a ‘lovey?’
Or a pet boa constrictor or a pet bear. There is no end to the nonsense this represents.
I mentioned the case of the 300 lb “comfort-pig” on an airplane. Can’t imagine getting a face-full of that during turbulence. Not to mention what would happen if the animal had to go to the bathroom. It’s not like you can fix that situation in a timely manner.
Maybe this woman can replace her monkey with a pet Valium.
Just based on my own personal experiences with panic disorder and anxiety, I can’t imagine a therapist worth their salt “prescribing” an Emotional Support Animal (ESA) to someone with crippling anxiety problems. Part of the point of therapy and all that is learning coping mechanisms, and carrying around a panacea (in this case, an ESA) that will “convince” you that it’s safe and ok to go out is unhealthy, IMO. It leads to reasoning like “OMG I can’t go out, my monkey is sick!” And you pin your ability to cope onto the ESA rather than take responsibility for it yourself.
To me, it’d be the same as saying “oh no I can’t go out, I don’t have my Xanax with me!”
Surely it can be factually determined if this is a health risk or not? That, and only that, IMHO, should be the determining factor (in the moral sense, at least).
If it’s not a health risk, then IMHO she should be able to bring it in, even if it’s just a pet.
If it is a health risk, IMHO she should NOT be able to bring it in, even if somehow it would medically and immediately lead to her death if she were seprated from it. Her desire to go to a buffet does not supercede the rights of others to not have their food contaminated.
How much she needs the animal is completely irrelevent to me (at least in the ethical judgement of the situation, if not the legal). If it’s a health risk, she should’t bring it, even if that means she can’t go to buffets any more.
Your post is very interesting to me, because there is a woman who lives in my neighborhood who travels around in one of those little electric scooter wheelchair thingies, and she ALWAYS has her dog with her. I have heard her telling people in stores & restaurants that he is a “service dog,” but the only things I have ever seen the dog do are 1) walk next to her on a leash when she is moving, and 2) lie down next to her when she is not. He seems like a nice enough dog, but as far as I can see isn’t trained to do a damn thing. I have often wondered if there are some kind of regulations that define exactly what a service dog is, and what they are actually supposed to be doing in order to qualify.
Ferret it was.
I think a stuffed animal or even a pet rock would do just as well with relieving anxiety. All she needs is a “good luck piece.”