Open Carry movement - 100 show up at Bay Area restaurant
02-10-2010, 07:42 AM
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Open Carry movement - 100 show up at Bay Area restaurant
100 gun advocates appear armed at Bay Area restaurant
By Janis Mara / Contra Costa Times
Updated: 02/06/2010 05:33:24 PM PST
WALNUT CREEK — Gray skies and a spattering of rain didn't dampen the enthusiasm of about 100 members of the Open Carry movement, who showed up Saturday morning displaying unloaded guns at a restaurant in downtown Walnut Creek.
The group hopes to make it easier to legally carry a loaded gun in California and has been gathering in Bay Area restaurants for the past few months. The original meeting place for Saturday was to have been nearby California Pizza Kitchen, but that company made it clear Open Carry wasn't welcome, so the group moved to the Buckhorn Grill.
"We're not politically involved. We're a restaurant and we're serving food," regional manager Tom McLaughlin said as he welcomed the group into his establishment. Both Peet's Coffee & Tea and the Pizza Kitchen have banned guns from their premises in response to recent requests from the national Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, while Starbucks refused the campaign's request to do so.
Not everyone at the restaurant was a member of Open Carry. Some people came from as far away as Fremont and Sausalito to learn about the group. Other patrons were dismayed when they walked in and unexpectedly encountered a restaurant full of men with pistols on one hip and ammunition on the other...................
http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_14349691
