by The North Carolina House Judiciary A Subcommittee will hold hearings on HB 111 on Wednesday. This bill would allow concealed carry holders to carry in restaurants and eating establishiments that serve alcohol and to carry in city or county parks (but not state parks). Concealed carry holders still would not be allowed to drink while carrying concealed.
This bill was heard before the same subcommittee last week but no vote was taken.
HB 111 would still allow restaurant owners to post their establishments prohibiting concealed carry. Nonetheless, some restaurant owners oppose the bill according to a story in the Fayetteville Observer.
In Fayetteville, manager Mike Callahan of The Big Apple Restaurant & Sports Pub and co-owner Josh Collins of Huske Hardware House Restaurant & Brewery in Fayetteville think the law change would threaten the lives of their patrons and employees.
Paul Valone, president of Grass Roots North Carolina, takes issue with some of the dire predictions and hyperbole.
“Just because I happen to walk into Fat Boy’s buffet restaurant in Mooresville, that happens to have beer in the line, why should I not be able to protect my family?” said Paul Valone of Grass Roots North Carolina, a gun rights advocacy group that is pushing for the law change. “I suspect some of the people involved in the Luigi’s restaurant shooting in Fayetteville a number of years back would probably agree with me.”
Criminals avoid places where they think people could be armed, Valone said.
I wrote a personal and separate email to all 120 NC State Representatives last week expressing my concern that they support this important bill.
My wife has worked at a corporate restaurant for about 6 years now and over the years she has seen the need to be able to carry her concealed handgun into work. The restaurant serves alcohol (under current laws she's not allowed to carry). Her shifts typically end around 11pm-12am and she has to walk across a poorly lit parking lot that has had multiple car break-ins and were coworkers have been approached in a non-friendly manner by strangers asking for money. I'm sure there are people thinking she should park closer to the door or have a buddy system to the car. The issue with parking the car closer to the door is that the corporate restaurant will not allow this since they would be taking the patrons parking spaces. The issue with having a buddy system is that no two people leave at the same time due to the rotation of tables in the restaurant. She is a law abiding citizen and hence she leaves her handgun in her car when she goes in to work, but we all know that if anything is going to happen its going to happen when she is walking to or from the restaurant. The gun is not much help at that point. This bill needs to be HEAVILY supported not just for the people eating at restaurants but the employees of restaurants that are a lot easier target/victims especially when they carry a large amount of CASH on them at the end of the night. PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BILL!
Thanks