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Bi-Lo Stores...CCW Not Allowed

3K views 17 replies 11 participants last post by  Benjaminm0110 
#1 ·
In response to this query sent to Bi-Lo Stores today:

"I'm sorry if this is posted elsewhere on your company's website, but if so, I could not find the answer.

What is your company's policy with regard to those customers who are licensed by their state to carry a concealed firearm shopping in your store while so carrying?

Thank you!",

I received this response:

"Thank you for contacting us about our firearm policy. We have signs posted
at our stores stating that firearms are not allowed.

Diane Youngblood
Manager Consumer Relations
BI-LO/Bruno's
diane.youngblood@bi-lo.com
PLEASE NOTE NEW PHONE # AS OF 05-04-2006
864-286-2832"

I saw a letter which Euclidean sent to Best Buy a while back, and I intend to use it as a model to craft a reply to Ms. Youngblood. In the meantime, if any of the rest of you shop at Bi-Los in the southeast, you may want to send comments as well.

By the way, the sign they do have posted at only one of two entrances of one of their stores in Middle Tennessee, a small one-and-a-half-inch by two-inch panel of a revolver with a "no" slash superimposed and the wording "No weapons allowed" as part of a panel of perhaps twenty-one advertisements and announcements, does NOT meet the Tennessee notification requirements for warning CCW holders that they are not welcome.
 
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#2 ·
Well - in any Bi-Lo I have been into in PA - never have I seen a sign - and so carry there as I would in any other store.

If it is their policy then does not seem they are trying to implement that uniformly. I guess too - they can only inflict a ''trespass'' on you if discovered and ask you to leave.
 
#4 ·
Both of you are correct that the signage doesn't meet requirements and that trespass is probably all with which I could be hit. Unfortunately, in my profession (educator), that is probably all it would take to lose my job and possibly my teaching license. :frown:
 
#6 ·
Thanks, sarhog--good advice! :smile:
 
#10 ·
:haha:
 
#14 ·
True, Leadslinger, but I still live with some concern of how my employer (a public school system) would react to any sort of problem in this area. Public education can be a different world, especially for those who support the Second Amendment.
 
#15 ·
Falcon,

The worst case scenerio I can see is .....

A business that posts a sign that forbids carry , catches you packing ....

#1 They ask you to leave .

or

#2 They call the Police . "Sorry Officer, I didn't see the sign."
The police tell you to leave and be more observant for the signs.

Either way ... I can't see a big deal being made about it.
Remember .. We are the good guys :hand10:

I really doubt your employer would be notified.
Just stay out of Govt. Bldgs , and Airports and your good.

Luckily in my state they don't have those stupid signs.

Another Idea ... Get local Pro-Gun folks to Boycott the business that do post notices against carry.

:theyareontome:
 
#16 ·
You're probably right, Leadslinger. In line with your last suggestion, and with extreme indebtedness to Euclidean of this forum; James D. Wright of Tulane University, who wrote the article "Ten Essential Observations on Guns in America"; and John Emmons of Ohioans for Concealed Carry (three from whose works I have shamelessly borrowed to create this letter); I will soon send this letter to the CEO and COO and others at Bi-Lo:

"To Whom It May Concern:

My family members have been loyal customers of Bi-Lo at a Middle Tennessee location which is approximately one mile from my home over the last twelve years (back even to the time when it was a Red Foods store), spending thousands of dollars there annually. It has recently come to my attention, however, that Bi-Lo stores discriminate unfairly against certain members of the general public.

These people are often welcomed by other business establishments, but not by Bi-Lo. These people are law-abiding citizens who have handgun carry permits.

While I am certain your intent in promulgating this policy which prohibits concealed carry in your stores is to promote the safety of your customers and employees, the policy in fact has the opposite effect. A criminal, intent on committing criminal acts, will freely bring any weapon(s) he chooses into your stores. (There are recorded incidents of retail stores being targeted for robbery due to the presence of signs which state that persons with handgun carry permits are not welcome.) The policy does, however, turn away those law-abiding citizens who, before they obtain a handgun carry permit, have fulfilled every requirement of a rigorous process: anyone who possesses a handgun carry permit has never committed a felony, has no history of mental illness, has placed their fingerprints on file with both local authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been vetted by extensive background checks, and has passed mandatory training by the state which issued his permit. Do you know this much about any of your other customers…or your employees?

Your firearm prohibition policy is a message to criminals that you have disarmed those who might otherwise have the means of protecting themselves in your stores and parking lots. If there is less risk associated with robbing your stores than there is with the stores of your competitors, this makes me personally feel safer in your competitors’ stores. There have been numerous occasions in which handgun carry permit holders have saved themselves and others from serious injury or death from attackers in those forty-six states that have allowed some form of concealed carry to their citizens, in some cases stretching back for decades now. There have also unfortunately been numerous instances where those who, denied the right to defend themselves by force of (illegitimate?) law or misguided company policy, have been injured by armed individuals of criminal intent who felt under no compunction to obey laws or policies against the carry and use of weapons while preying upon their fellow man. For instance, news reports now indicate that the vicious 21 July 2006 assault upon eight workers at a Schnucks store by a multiple-knife-wielding fellow employee in Arlington, Tennessee, was ended by a private citizen armed with a firearm:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/07/21/supermarket.stabbing.ap/index.html.

(How many of the eight injured employees would not have been injured if Mr. Cope had been inside the Schnucks store with his legal firearm instead of in the parking lot? We will never know, but my reading of the news reports and logic both tell me that the assailant would likely have stopped immediately—just as he ultimately did after harming eight—upon being confronted by Mr. Cope [after only one victim was injured?...perhaps even before anyone was injured?] By the way, my information from outside sources reveals that Schnucks has exactly the same policy—prohibiting the in-store concealed carry of firearms by customers despite their being licensed by their state to do so—that your company does.)

You will find that many if not most people with handgun carry permits are typically lawyers, doctors, business people, accountants, engineers, educators, and the like. These individuals shop at a particular grocery chain because of convenient location, because of the friendliness of the employees, because of loyalty to the brand, because they like the values offered, or because of other reasons (your company’s own professional research in grocery store “branding” reveals, I am certain, many more reasons than my “common sense” listing, which was developed—incidentally—as I recalled the past relationship which I have enjoyed with your Middle Tennessee store). However, if something stands in their way of patronizing a store, they will choose to go elsewhere where the impediment does not exist; i.e., if you do not get the permit holders’ business, your competitors will.

Would Bi-Lo not allow someone into their stores just because they have a permit to operate large commercial vehicles? Would Bi-Lo not allow someone into their stores just because they had a permit to sell tobacco or alcohol? It makes no sense for Bi-Lo to discriminate against a group of people simply because they possess a legal permit to do, own, carry, or operate something, especially when it means less in the way of sales.

Please also take note of this definitive truth: robbery and murder are against the law, yet robbers still rob and murderers still murder. One has, I believe, the right to ask what policy your company, or any company, can write which will realistically prevent those criminals who have already decided to break laws against robbery and murder from violating your policy against carrying weapons onto your premises. Indeed, the proposition would be laughable were it not so serious. And what responsibilities, moral and legal, does your company bear to those of your customers who are injured on your property because your policy infringed upon their right to defend themselves against those criminals who, intent upon criminal mischief and caring not one whit for your policy and dissuaded not by it, come onto your property with weapons of whatever type to inflict property loss, grievous bodily harm, or worse, upon them?

Our policy as a family is to patronize those businesses that do not infringe upon our right to protect ourselves. A competing store which allows handgun carry permit holders to carry in their store is approximately two miles further up the road from your location. I would hate to think I could not shop at Bi-Lo while I was welcomed at the other store. I hope that Bi-Lo will see the wisdom of reversing this handgun carry permit prohibition policy, so that we can again shop at your stores."


If anyone sees anything I might add or change before I send this, please let me know. Thanks!
 
#17 · (Edited)
Tanksoldier's SOP for carrying in places that are not specifically prohibited by the letter of the law:

"Sign? What sign? Oh, THAT sign. Sorry, didn't see it. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll go shop somewhere else."


In Colorado you can even carry in airports as long as you don't enter the secure area.
Carry is legal on college campuses as well.

Post offices would seem to be legal as well:

http://www.thegunzone.com/rkba/rtc-usps.html
 
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