I have been asked to write an account about my experience in changing management’s opinion and policy on posting “No Guns” signs on the doors at Elyria's Midway Mall in Elyria, OH so others might learn from the way I handled the situation.The article concludes with: "The facts are a powerful thing when delivered with respect."
I was asked by Daniel White, OFCC Director-At-Large, to verify that the Midway Mall had indeed posted signs on the doors as reported by a member in the forums on the OFCC web site. He asked me if I would be willing to talk to someone about their policy if the doors were in fact posted.
I accepted his request on behalf of the members of OFCC and went to the mall that evening after work. I walked the perimeter of the mall to look at each door and indeed all but one was posted. I then went to the office of the mall but found it to be closed because it was after 5:00 PM.
I then decided this was a good thing because it gave me a chance to prepare what I wanted to say to the mall managers. I then went to the information booth where they rent the strollers and wheel chairs to ask who I might be able to talk to about the signs or someone in public relations. The lady handed me a business card for the assistant manager of the mall.
Sometimes they are, but too many times I have seen the facts sneered at and derided. Credit must go to the management of that mall for being intelligent and listening to reason.
Via John Lott.
UPDATE: Back when Texas passed the CHL law, as many Texans will remember, there was panic in the streets at the thought of mere law-abiding citizens suddenly being able to defend themselves. Signs immediately went up at my place of employment. Since I didn't get a CHL until about 5 years after the law was passed, I don't know if the regulatory 30.06 sign was part of the original law, but these were not 30.06 signs. These were just the generic "our employees are forbidden from carrying arms, so please try not to kill us" signs.
I wrote a very cogent and well-thought-out (I thought, anyway) letter to our general manager. Although we didn't have as much supporting data back then as we do know, I pointed out that if someone was going to come in and start murdering people, why would they be suddenly stopped by a sign on the door? There were other points than that, too. I even made the point that if it were to become company policy, it should be made known in a form that would be easily available only to employees, such as the employee handbook. That way the average mass-murderer-on-the-street wouldn't automatically know that this was policy because we were advertising it on the front door. I did use more diplomatic language than this, but that was the point. I didn't expect good results. As usual, my expectations were fulfilled. She came by my workstation one day and simply said, "Alan, the signs are not coming down." I just told her, "I believe you have made a bad decision based on an irrational fear, and not on sound reasoning." She pretty much hated me after that, but then I didn't care much for her, either.
Oh, I forgot to mention, we had an unarmed "security guard" at this place. His main reason for being there was to try and stop the technicians from stealing things. The only problem was, the technicians weren't doing the stealing. It was happening out the back door at shipping & receiving. So anyway...
The signs were up for a couple of months, when one night during third shift, when I wasn't there, a disgruntled ex-employee came by and fired a few shots through the breakroom door, which also served as the main employee entrance. Fortunately it was not during break time, so the only person in there was the "security guard." He was sitting at his desk off to the side. No one was injured.
The next day the security guard became armed. And the signs came down. It took a potentially murderous situation to get through to the the general manager that those signs were worse than worthless. So if I sometimes seem extremely cynical about this kind of thing, now you know why.
There was never an announcement made about the signs. They just disappeared. It seemed that management was determined to pretend they had never been there.
