A Brisbane cafe has been forced to change its pet-friendly approach and will no longer allow dogs indoors, following a complaint.
Little Genovese in Coorparoo had been welcoming pets inside for nine years but has now changed its procedures, after a visit from a council inspector.
“They’d received a complaint about one of my staff members patting a dog and not washing their hands, which is probably untrue,” owner Kylie Loch told 7NEWS.
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“Let’s just a have a little bit of common sense.
“The dog’s not in the kitchen. It doesn’t have a chef’s jacket on.”
The cafe was forced to stipulate to customers that dogs were only allowed to be out the front or “right out the back” of the eatery.
The shopfront window is displaying a prominent hand-written message, saying: “Due to an anonymous complaint (we know who you are!!) dogs must sit out the front or right out the back… We are sorry.”
On its Instagram page, the cafe wrote: “To all our four-legged friends … We love you very much but due to someone making a stupid complaint, sadly we can’t have you inside.
“Therefore we need you to be good and sit out the front or right out the back while your hooman orders theirs coffee.”
Brisbane City Council said it enforces the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Code.
But councillor Sarah Hutton, who chairs the council’s City Standards Committee, has called for a re-think.
“It’s time to have a bit of an open conversation and understand that not all businesses are the same,” Hutton said.
“The legislation has a one size fits all approach.
“We will be writing to the federal government asking them to review the legislation.”