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http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2003/03/24/story4.html
http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2003/03/24/story4.html
Building owners voice gun-law worries
Scott D. Smith Staff Reporter
With the state considering relaxed conceal-and-carry gun laws, downtown building owners want to make sure they can keep those weapons out of their buildings.
The 2003 Minnesota Legislature is expected to pass a law that will make it easier for Minnesotans to get permits to carry concealed guns.
Gun control, unlike property taxes or parking, isn't typically a hot-button issue for building owners.
This past week, however, Kent Warden, president of the Minneapolis Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), and Sam Grabarski, president of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, appeared at the Legislature to testify against relaxing conceal-and-carry laws.
"Obviously, the focus of our concerns is for safety in the workplace," Warden said.
This isn't a good time to allow more people to have concealed weapons after buildings spent millions of dollars trying to improve security in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he said. The downtown council's concern is that more concealed weapons might make people reluctant to attend downtown events, such as the annual Holidazzle parades.
Bill Buth, president of St. Paul BOMA, also feels strongly about the issue. "Without a shadow of doubt, it is of extreme concern for us," he said.
The Legislature is expected to change the permit system under which law-enforcement officials have broad discretion to deny permits. Recent proposals would require police to issue permits as long as applicants passed background checks, completed a training course and met other requirements.
If the law changes, it is expected that 38,000 more gun permits will be issued during the first year, said Rebecca Thoman, executive director of St. Paul-based Citizens for a Safer Minnesota.
A few different proposals are in play. On Monday, the DFL changed tactics from simply trying to defeat an expanded conceal-and-carry law to offering an alternative law. Sen. Jim Vickerman, DFL-Tracy, introduced a bill that would allow an owner of private property that serves the public to put up a sign prohibiting people with concealed weapons from entering.
The Republican proposal, by Sen. Pat Pariseau, R-Farmington, originally did not allow such property owners to stop people with concealed weapons from entering their property. However, an amendment offered to the Republican House version would allow building owners to prohibit guns on their premises by posting a sign, but they would also have to provide lockers for storing guns.
Buth called the locker proposal "unworkable" because it would make building owners liable for accidents that might happen during storage of a gun. Buth said he expects building owners would put up the signs prohibiting guns, if they were given the option.
Texas has had a law similar to the one proposed by the DFL for several years. But even though multitenant office buildings have the right to post signs preventing people with weapons from entering, that has not happened, according to Joe Marchant, executive director of Dallas BOMA.
He admits that Texas and Minnesota aren't exactly the same. "The Texas culture is substantially different than in Minneapolis, so people carrying weapons in Texas is not a shocking idea," Marchant said.
Under the Texas law, businesses have the right to restrict people from entering with weapons by putting up a sign to that effect. For example, banks often have such signs. But as far as Marchant knows, no owners of multitenant office buildings in Dallas have posted such signs, though individual tenants within buildings have, he said.
Legal counsel for Dallas BOMA advised against the signs, saying that they would create a false sense of security unless measures were also taken to make sure people were complying, Marchant said.
Jean Holloway, partner with Minneapolis-based Faegre & Benson, said she does not believe a change in the current law would restrict businesses from having policies preventing guns in the workplace. Her concern is that, with more people legally carrying guns, businesses would have more difficulty enforcing such policies.
"I share employer concerns that even if you have a policy prohibiting guns, you will have more people showing up to work with guns," she said.
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