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Westfield Shoppingtowns: A national call to action

Gray Peterson

Founder's Club Member - Moderator
Joined
May 12, 2006
Messages
2,236
Location
Lynnwood, Washington, USA
imported post

After recent events in Washington State, I have decided that that I'm sick and tired of the malls that continually ban guns from their property.

Malls in a lot of ways are special in a sense of property ownership, and almost hostage-taking in a sense. Even if a tenant wanted to allow carry in their store, they are not allowed to per mall policies which totally prohibit carry except by law enforcement.

Malls also do not pay attention to complaining shoppers, unless it falls into one of their specifically defined "no-nos". They view that gun owners are a throw-away constituency that no one will care about.

I plan to prove them wrong.

I need volunteers. I certainly have people in Seattle, Olympia, and Vancouver, but I need a nationwide effort in the malls that have shall-issue laws or may issue laws that have reasonable issue near them.

Westfield Malls in the US

I need volunteers for the following metro areas:

Sacramento, CA (Yolo and other surrounding counties are shall-issue)
Los Angeles-Orange-San Diego Metroplex, CA (Orange County is reasonable issue)
New Haven and Fairfield County, CT
Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL
Sarasota, FL
Hobart/Merrillville, IN (Westfield Southlake)
St. Louis Metro area, MO
Lincoln, NE
Charlotte and Burlington, NC
Canton, Cleveland, and Toledo, OH

What am I asking everyone to do?

I will be creating form letters to the store managers of every store in a mall in said state. Each state's form letter will be customized to a particular state's situation (CA and FL being nominally concealed only states and California being may-issue). I am at the moment ignoring Illinois, New Jersey, and New York for obvious reasons, and some portions of California.

The point of the form letters is to point out that because of the mall's anti-gun policies prohibiting lawful concealed and open carry, you cannot shop there and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars in merchandise at their store, and you are forced to either go to another place that respects your open carry rights nationally (Like Walmart's nationwide policy of no policy) or to another one of their store chain that is either a stand alone store or at a mall that has no policy.

Though malls tend not to listen to shoppers (they are only indirectly effected by the people who are kicked out), they do tend to listen to the store managers who are telling them that they are unhappy that they are turning away a potential dollar source.

Retail stores are not only in competition with actual competitors, they are also in competition within the same company, doing their best to outsell the other stores, and with mall rent being high, they need every dollar they can get to survive, or they lose their jobs.

With anything retail, any dollar that is potentially lost is a bad thing, and especially when these stores in malls have to compete with the stand alones, not to mention jewelry stores, and so on....

You get the picture.

I want to warn all of you: This isn't going to be easy, or cheap. Also, you will have to go into the mall and go to every store, ask for a store manager or manager on duty, and hand them the letter. Whatever form letters are drafted, has to make sure that it defeats any sort of legal stuff that the mall management will throw to scuttle the idea. I'm thinking two pages at least to each store manager, etc etc.

Not to mention, also hitting the same thing on the corporate HQ's via mail in regards to the mall situation.

Any takers or volunteers? :)
 

Drewesque

Regular Member
Joined
May 18, 2007
Messages
178
Location
Lacey, Washington, USA
imported post

Well, it won't be of too much help to the expansion of this outside WA, but I'm with you on this. I don't often go to Capital Mall, but I can round up several others who give a bit more business than myself. And I'd probably go there if it was gun-friendly, so I figure I count for something.
 

CaliforniaCarry

Regular Member
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
49
Location
Santa Clarita, California, USA
imported post

Wow, I had no idea about Westfield's no-gun policy. I literally live within a quarter mile of a Westfield shopping center, and every time I go there I think "I wish I could be carrying right now". Large crowds of people sort of make me uncomfortable, especially when they are all moving to-and-fro. Too bad I live in LA county, where "may issue" = "no issue". At the same time, CA is pretty much a concealed-only state for most people, and I would have no trouble breaking a "no weapons" policy if I were concealing.
 

Gray Peterson

Founder's Club Member - Moderator
Joined
May 12, 2006
Messages
2,236
Location
Lynnwood, Washington, USA
imported post

Drewesque wrote:
Well, it won't be of too much help to the expansion of this outside WA, but I'm with you on this. I don't often go to Capital Mall, but I can round up several others who give a bit more business than myself. And I'd probably go there if it was gun-friendly, so I figure I count for something.
I'm not doing any specific names of anyone shopping. It's vague for a reason. :)
 

Drewesque

Regular Member
Joined
May 18, 2007
Messages
178
Location
Lacey, Washington, USA
imported post

Lonnie Wilson wrote:
Drewesque wrote:
Well, it won't be of too much help to the expansion of this outside WA, but I'm with you on this. I don't often go to Capital Mall, but I can round up several others who give a bit more business than myself. And I'd probably go there if it was gun-friendly, so I figure I count for something.
I'm not doing any specific names of anyone shopping. It's vague for a reason. :)
I just meant that there might be a few of them that are there enough that a manager might actually notice them as a source of revenue.
 

Gray Peterson

Founder's Club Member - Moderator
Joined
May 12, 2006
Messages
2,236
Location
Lynnwood, Washington, USA
imported post

Drewesque wrote:
Lonnie Wilson wrote:
Drewesque wrote:
Well, it won't be of too much help to the expansion of this outside WA, but I'm with you on this. I don't often go to Capital Mall, but I can round up several others who give a bit more business than myself. And I'd probably go there if it was gun-friendly, so I figure I count for something.
I'm not doing any specific names of anyone shopping. It's vague for a reason. :)
I just meant that there might be a few of them that are there enough that a manager might actually notice them as a source of revenue.
Um, no. The point of the entire thing is an open letter to the head of the stores and force pressure. There needs to be a truthful pressure that there's a lot of people. They tend to get myopic.

An obvious exception would be someone who generally spends thousands of dollars at one particular store. A jewelry store. That still should not prevent the letter from being handed out at every store. No talking, just "Can you give this to your store manager please"?

-Lonnie
 

openryan

State Researcher
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,602
Location
, Indiana, USA
imported post

How about Northwest Indiana, I would be happy to help out. There is a very large West Field shopping center just outside the Gary metropolitan area, in Hobart, IN.

In Indiana about 1 of every 15 people has a permit to carry. I seldom see anyone OC, but I know we have a lot of concealed people here, but I OC myself 90% of the time.

Let me know if I can be of any help.
 
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