Subway: No open carry in stores
Steve Wagner of Smithfield carries an inert AT-4 anti-tank weapon and two pistols while paying for sandwiches at a Subway in downtown Raleigh, May 9, 2020. A group of about 11 mostly-armed demonstrators protesting the stay-at-home order marched around downtown Raleigh and ordered sandwiches.
(Courtesy of Travis Long/Raleigh News & Observer)
A sandwich artist at the Hess Street Subway in Hayden builds a customer’s sub Thursday, one day after its corporate office announced a new policy requesting customers not open carry in its more than 23,000 stores nationwide, including in states like Idaho, where open carry is legal. Patrons legally carrying concealed handguns are still permitted.
(CRAIG NORTHRUP/Hagadone News Network)
Sandwich shop chain sets new gun policy
Sherri Kokinakis was just as surprised as anyone.
“I first heard about it on Facebook,” the manager of the Hayden subway told The Hagadone News Network on Friday. “Someone asked me if I saw the post, so I read it and thought, ‘This is the first I’m hearing about it.’”
“It” is a new policy handed down by Subway’s Connecticut corporate office this week, a policy that bans open carry in its 23,801 sandwich shops across the United States. It’s a policy Kokinakis said came from out of the blue.
“I didn’t see anything from our main (headquarters) about it,” she said. “I still haven’t.”
On Wednesday, Subway changed its policy to prohibit open carry customers, even in states like Idaho where open carry is legal. The move stemmed from March, when North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper implemented social restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The restrictions — which followed similar footsteps to Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s stay-home orders — closed churches, movie theaters and most businesses, curbed non-essential travel and limited restaurants to curbside service.
By May, protesters picketed Cooper’s home, demanding his stay-home order be lifted altogether. As protests spread across the state, many protesters began carrying guns. On March 8, some North Carolinians took a lunch break from the protests. A customer captured pictures of heavily-armed men and women ordering sandwiches from a Raleigh Subway, sharing the images on social media. One picture in particular showed a customer getting ready to pay for his footlong sub in cash with a rocket launcher strapped to his back.
“OK,” Kokinakis admitted, “the rocket launcher is a bit much.”
Even though the rocket launcher was reportedly inert, the picture still went semi-viral; two months later, Subway announced its July 8 policy change. “For the consideration and comfort of restaurant employees and guests,” the statement reads, “Subway respectfully requests that guests (other than authorized law enforcement) refrain from openly displaying firearms inside restaurants — even in states where ‘open carry’ is permitted.”
The new policy doesn’t speak to patrons legally able to carry a concealed weapon. The Hagadone News Network has not received a response from local ownership for comment. For now, though, Kokinakis is paying little attention to the change.
“Until I hear from the owner on this, I’m not enforcing it,” she said. “Like I said, I found out about this on Facebook. It’s tricky because it’s supposedly a company policy.
“But Idaho is an open carry state. I mean, I carry. But if someone comes in, and they’re carrying a weapon, and they’re acting responsibly and respectfully, until I hear otherwise, we’ll continue to serve them.”
