AZ: Many Pizza Huts drop ban on concealed carry

[ELB]

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New policy lets customers carry weapons but doesn't apply to 1,000 restaurant workers

The company that owns most of Southern Arizona's Pizza Huts has reversed policy and is allowing customers to carry firearms into the restaurants if they are legal possessors.

Patrick McKinney, vice president of operations for Tucson-based Pizza Hut of Arizona, said he began reconsidering the company's policy of prohibiting guns after reading a newspaper article about the state's new concealed-carry law.

That law, which goes into effect July 29, allows people 21 or older (and not prohibited from having a firearm) to carry a concealed gun without a permit.

McKinney and his staff held a meeting about the issue and began to remove the restaurants' signs banning firearms during the first week of June, he said in a written reply to questions.

...

The new policy doesn't apply to employees, who won't be able to carry guns at work. "For safety reasons we have always had a 'no weapon' policy (while working) for all of us at Pizza Hut of Arizona," McKinney wrote.

[BrianSW99]

Strange that they didn't allow it when you had to get a permit, background check, etc to carry, but now that anyone over 21 can carry without a permit it's a good idea? I think it's great that they reversed the policy, but I would have thought you'd see more places banning guns in response to the new law and not the other way around.

[ELB]

I think they realized that a) they are in a very gunowner friendly state, and that b)removing the requirement for a permit is going to increase the number of people carrying. They probably figured that prior to the new law, the number of CHL carriers who did not patronize there restaurants was small enough that that it was no big loss. Now, after the change, the pool of potential lost customers is much bigger. It is an economic decision, just like the fact that they still ban their employees from carrying. They do not give a flip about their employees' safety, only the company's liability exposure. They (or most likely, their insurers) figure it is cheaper to paying some insurance for any employees that get hurt or killed than it would be if one of the employees shoots someone that might not have needed shooting.