Translate

Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Smaller Restaurants Welcome Gun Owners


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, CMG in Your Value Your Change Short position StarbucksSONC in Your Value Your Change Short position , and Sonic 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."

 

No comments: