I haven’t been to a Publix grocery store since I learned that the massive southeastern grocery store chain doesn’t want its customers to carry firearms openly on its property or in its stores. It doesn’t matter that I never carry openly. We have that specific right in Florida.
If a store doesn’t want customers to exercise that right, we’ll shop elsewhere. It wasn’t a difficult decision, even though there are two Publix grocery stores within walking distance of my Sarasota home.
The policy is posted in a window and became well known: “Publix kindly asks that only law enforcement openly carry firearms in our stores.”
An X follower pointed out that Publix in Tennessee also bans open carry:
However a longtime friend, Richard Nascak, co-founder and executive director of Florida Carry, shared a post over the weekend showing that Publix’s open carry appears to vary geographically. A Publix store in Georgia doesn’t ban open carry . . .
That’s certainly strange. Publix may be enforcing an open-carry ban in only some of the eight states where it operates.
I wanted to know more, so I reached out the Lindsey Willis, Publix’s media relations manager for central and south Florida. Ms. Willis didn’t respond to calls or emails seeking comment. I then reached out to Hannah Herring, Publix’s media director for north and central Florida, southern Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. Ms. Herring didn’t respond to calls or emails either.
Finally, I tried Maria Brous, the chain’s Director of Communications, who has worked for Publix for more than 35 years. Like her two subordinates, Ms. Brous didn’t return my calls or emails.
Takeaways
Publix operates nearly 1,500 grocery stores in eight southeastern states. Florida, the chain’s home, has the most stores, more than 900. Publix is one of the 10 largest grocery store chains in the country and employs more than a quarter-million people. Last year, its sales reached $62 billion and it’s routinely rated as one of the best grocery chains in America.
Publix does business in states that strongly support their residents’ Second Amendment rights—absent the 24 properties in Virginia…at least for now. So, why take away their right to openly carry firearms? That remains known only to a few upper-level staffers at Publix headquarters in Lakeland, Florida.
Their response to the coverage of this important civil rights issue has been abysmal, but it’s about what I expected.
To be clear, as store owners, they certainly have the right to ban the open carry of firearms at their properties, as well as the right to keep their reasons for the ban to themselves. However, as customers, we certainly have the right to shop somewhere else, where the staff isn’t so afraid of the sight of a holstered firearm.
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This story is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and is published here with their permission.
Lost of chain stores have a ‘rule’ against ‘open carry’ which may or may not be selectively applied at different locations. Its not just Publix – and sometimes it also depends on the specific store management also.
For example, our closest Walmart doesn’t mind open carry yet a Walmart ~20 miles away doesn’t allow open carry. Even though its a corporate Walmart policy that customers do not open carry, according to a Walmart store manager I spoke with in the past, basically, a store manager at a Walmart (or SAM’s club) can allow open carry even though they are not suppose to according to corporate policy because corporate doesn’t jump all over them when they do allow it and basically lets the manager do things as they wish as long as things are running properly and overall corporate policy is adhered to.