I definitely look forward to seeing how this one turns out. And yes, it will indeed be a landmark case.
Based on the comment that they've had the dog all its life, I'm taking that to mean the dog is owner-trained. This is where training logs will be critical. We saw in the Bronk case, that an inability to prove the dog is trained can result in it being declared not a service dog, and that the word of the owner alone does not constitute proof of training. Gotta have those logs.
Now, if the cities were being smart about this, which apparently none of them are being, they would have allowed him to apply for an exemption, required proof of training or a temperament test or something, and then granted the exemption on a case-by-case basis. I am not in favor of breed bans. What concerns me is that when breed bans are in place, people will claim their pets as a service dog in order to keep it, then after so claiming, they'll take it everywhere, even if it isn't temperamentally suited or trained, and this will have a substantial negative impact on legit SD teams. So, playing devil's advocate, if I wanted to have a breed ban, and avoid this sort of loopholing, I would establish a procedure for getting an exception to the rule.
The letter of the law is REASONABLE accommodation, not any and all accommodation without having to ask for it. In the case where dogs in general are allowed in a community, reasonable accommodation assumes no special request for accommodation is necessary. But when we look at places such as housing, the accommodation must be requested. So I think they could make a case that this is a reasonable accommodation to take into account the community's right to self govern and protect their citizens AND the PWD's right to have a SD. A compromise. Reasonableness loves a compromise. Not budging is very likely to land them with a very broad "any pitbull claimed as a service dog, without proof, is allowed" and that's going to be a huge mess.
