Smaller Restaurants
Welcome Gun Owners
While Some Large Chains Discourage Guns, More
Independent Restaurateurs Are Giving the Green Light
By Ashby Jones in the
Wall Street Journal
While guns are off the
welcome list at chains including Chipotle Mexican Grill, Starbucks,
and Sonic , a small but growing number of independent restaurateurs around
the country are rolling out the red carpet.
Eateries like Shiloh
Brew & Chew in Maryville, Tenn., are posting signs saying guns are welcome.
All Around Pizza and Deli in Virginia Beach, Va., is offering discounts for
patrons who show up armed, while The Cajun Experience in Leesburg, Va., hosts
"Second Amendment Wednesdays." At Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colo., the
waitresses pack heat.
"I believe in the
right to bear arms, and as a small business owner, who am I to take it
away?" said Sharma Floyd, the owner of Shiloh Brew & Chew. In May, she
posted a small, paper sign in the window of her restaurant noting that
"guns are welcome on premises," above a picture of a handgun. After a
local television station ran a story on Ms. Floyd's move in July, business
spiked, she said, largely due to an influx of diners carrying concealed
weapons.
Most states readily
allow their residents to carry handguns outside the home, either in a concealed
or open fashion. But private businesses have wide latitude to allow or restrict
the presence of firearms, and some, motivated largely by a perceived anti-gun
sentiment arising after the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Conn., have decided to
open their doors to guns and their owners.
Last year, Starbucks
asked its customers not to bring guns into its more than 12,000 cafes in the
U.S. In May, Sonic, Chipotle, and Chili's Grill & Bar made similar requests
after participants at gun-rights demonstrations brought rifles and
semi-automatic weapons into their outlets to advocate for the right to display
weapons in public. The chains didn't institute outright bans, only requested
that patrons leave them behind.
Some gun-control
activists call the pro-gun efforts irresponsible. "Restaurants routinely
protect their patrons from second-hand smoke, so it makes sense they would go
out of their way to protect them from bullets as well," said Shannon
Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which has
pressured larger companies to adopt more-restrictive policies on guns.
Gun-rights supporters
call such concerns overblown. "Gun-owners are largely polite, tend to
their own business, and are responsible with their firearms," said Dave
Workman, communications director for the Citizens Committee for the Right to
Keep and Bear Arms.
Some gun-policy
experts suspect that the niche of pro-gun restaurants will grow, alongside some
smaller chains that take the opposite approach. Several small restaurants in
Georgia, for example, have adopted more-restrictive policies in the wake of a
new state law that allows people licensed to carry weapons outside the home to
bring them into some bars and elsewhere.
The restaurants
actively inviting patrons to dine with guns say they have experienced few
problems related to firearms so far.
"Most that come
in are responsible and have their guns holstered," said Jay Laze, owner of
All Around Pizza and Deli. Last year, Mr. Laze began giving 15% discounts to
diners who either were carrying openly or had concealed-carry permits. "It
was good for business, and I've hopefully educated some folks on the Second
Amendment and the right to carry."
Bryan Crosswhite,
owner of a The Cajun Experience, which gives 10% discounts on Wednesdays to
those with guns, said he, too, had experienced no serious problems with his
program, adding that he won't serve alcohol to patrons openly carrying. On
occasion, he said, people used his restaurant to showcase some of their more
serious firearms. "I had a guy show up with an AR-15," he said.
"I told him to go home."
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