If you click on the OPs link, there's a poll. Be sure you hit it.Scott Powers | Sentinel Staff Writer
July 8, 2008
Walt Disney World fired a security guard on Monday after he protested the company's decision not to allow people with concealed weapons permits to keep guns in their cars on Disney property.
Disney terminated Edwin Sotomayor, 36, of Orlando for violating three Disney employee policies, essentially for failing to cooperate with an internal investigation, said spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez. Sotomayor vowed to continue his fight.
At issue is Florida's new law that allows people with concealed weapons permits to keep firearms in their vehicles in employee parking lots.
Disney advised its employees late last month that the theme-park resort is exempt from that state law, and that they may not bring firearms onto the property. Disney stated that its gun policy is based on safety concerns for visitors and employees.
Sotomayor alerted local media last week that he intended to challenge Disney's claim of an exemption to the new law by bringing a gun to work, locked in his vehicle. When he showed up for work at Disney's Animal Kingdom on Friday, he declined to let Disney authorities search his car. Disney suspended him pending an investigation, then fired him Monday.
Sotomayor expressed distress about the end of his 13-year career at Disney, but not regret. He said he expects the security guards' union, Security Police & Fire Professionals of America Amalgamated Local 603, to challenge his termination, and he intends to continue his own challenge of Disney World's gun policy.
"I am not going to stop this fight," he said. "This is going to end somewhere good."
The security guards' union, Local 603, would not comment, referring inquiries to Disney World.
Scott Powers can be reached at spowers@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5441.
No its not. Its state law in Florida now.It is a debatable matter of personal rights over property rights.
You're exactly right. The vehicle is the employee's property, not Disney's. Disney has no right to tell him what he can or cannot have inside his vehicle.Edit: Didn't refresh and repeated a prior comment.
I'm not sure that everyone here is going to disagree with Disney's position. It is a debatable matter of personal rights over property rights.
Explain more (and cite), please? I was wondering about "Disney's claim of an exemption to the new law"...What some people do not know is that Disney aka Reedy Creek Improvement District is their own government. They have their own executive and legislative forms of government. They rule by Dictatorship so they have no need for a judicial branch. Everyone not just the folks in Florida need to stand up and pay attention to this.
The new Florida law contains an exemption for businesses that have a license to store or use explosives. Disney has a license due to the large number of fireworks they use. Comments made by the legislators who wrote the bill seem to indicate that they did not specifically mean for Disney to be exempted by this provision.
Currently, the poll is over 80% pro-carry.
Google it and you will find your answers. To many it is common knowledge, sorry the word had not made it to you. The Internet is a wonderful if you only learn how to use it.kenny wrote:Explain more (and cite), please? I was wondering about "Disney's claim of an exemption to the new law"...What some people do not know is that Disney aka Reedy Creek Improvement District is their own government. They have their own executive and legislative forms of government. They rule by Dictatorship so they have no need for a judicial branch. Everyone not just the folks in Florida need to stand up and pay attention to this.
Obviously the intention of the law was to exempt businesses whose primary function is storing and using explosives. (Though I don't know why a gun in your trunk is more dangerous at the dynamite factory than it would be at the post office.) The question that the state of Florida and Disney's lawyers will have to hash out is whether the law is actually worded so that anyone with a fireworks permit can weasel out of it.thorvaldr wrote:The new Florida law contains an exemption for businesses that have a license to store or use explosives. Disney has a license due to the large number of fireworks they use. Comments made by the legislators who wrote the bill seem to indicate that they did not specifically mean for Disney to be exempted by this provision.
IIRC the exemption in the law is only for businesses whose PRIMARY business is the storage or use of explosives.
If Disney can prove that their primary business is storing and setting off fireworks, then the exemption would apply.
However, most people probably spend 8 to 10 hours in the park and spend 20 minutes or so of that watching the fireworks.
Some people don't even stay for the fireworks.