Sounding Board: Gunning for a solution

For retailers, gun laws raise many questions and very few answers. It is Sunday morning and the supermarket is filled with parents and kids. Among them is a guy wheeling a shopping cart stopping to pick up some tomatoes. It is a common sight. The only difference is the guy is carrying an AR-15 rifle. This is not as outlandish as you might think. Just ask Kroger or Target. However, even after the all-too-common instances of gun violence in public places, this is a complicated issue involving constitutional rights, retail policies and consumer attitudes. Kroger felt the sting of anti-gun advocates when the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, backed by former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg started putting pressure on the chain to ban guns from its stores. Meanwhile, Second Amendment advocates have staged their own demonstrations at restaurants and retail establishments including Kroger stores in Arkansas, Kentucky, Texas, Ohio and Michigan. It is kind of a “damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t” situation. Kroger certainly is not alone. Target has been beat up on social media and elsewhere on the gun issue. This has prompted a middling response from interim CEO John Mulligan. “Our approach has been to follow local laws, and of course, we will continue to do so. But we will also respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target—even in communities where it is permitted by law.” Many chains have instituted “no gun” policies for the safety of employees and customers. Rather than outright bans they merely suggest people not bring firearms into the stores. This is probably a wise move since I cannot see an employee or a manager asking some guy sporting a Glock to step outside. However, some have instituted outright bans. Among them: Whole Foods, Disney Parks, Toys“R”Us, AMC Cinemas, IKEA and Peet’s Coffee shops. This is a bold move considering that this strategy is not usually supported by elected officials, who often see gun control as a political black hole. The problem is that restrictions are governed by a patchwork of state and local laws that confound the most seasoned legal experts. For instance, in California, openly carrying firearms is generally banned—except in counties with unincorporated areas that have less than 200,000 people. In Texas, openly carrying a handgun in public is banned, but it is okay to carry a rifle. Overall, only six states—California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Florida and South Carolina—and the District of Columbia prohibit openly carrying a firearm. About 14 other states require a permit for open-carry while 30 states do not even require a permit. In June, Connecticut lawmakers petitioned the nation’s largest retailers and the National Retail Federation (NRF) to support gun control by banning customers from carrying guns into their stores. It was prompted by a report that a loaded gun was left in the toy aisle of a Target store in South Carolina and that there have been 79 shootings in Walmart stores since 2012. Of course, most incidents took place outside the stores but that is a less juicy sound bite. To my knowledge, no retail association has tackled the issue head on. So the question remains: what should retailers do? According to a recent NRF survey, more than 90% of retailers have company policies prohibiting employees from having firearms on premises. However, can this be extended to customers—even in open-carry states? There are complications with whatever posture you take. If you post signs forbidding firearms you risk alienating law-abiding citizens who have gone through a lengthy legal process to get a license. Even if they do not carry they can be turned off by the mere implication that they are dangerous. It becomes a personal issue and they may take their business someplace else. Another question—if the state allows people to carry firearms, is it legal for a retailer or mall to say no? Under the law, if a mall has a particular policy banning firearms, retailers are covered under that proviso. If it is a freestanding property or strip mall, the law is unclear. One thing is for sure; the bad guys do not care. Len Lewis, a regular Grocery Headquarters columnist is a veteran industry journalist, commentator and editorial director of Lewis Communications, Inc. He is the author of The Trader Joe’s Adventure- Turning a Unique Approach to business into a Retail and Cultural Phenomenon. He can be reached at [email protected]. or at www.lenlewiscommunications.com.