Nashville restaurateur to fight state gun law
Suit will challenge measure’s constitutionality
A well-known Nashville restaurant and bar owner plans to sue today to stop the state’s new guns-in-bars law from taking effect later this month.
The case will center on claims that the law would create a public nuisance that threatens the safety of the public, and violates the constitutional rights of restaurant/bar owners, patrons and employees.
Randy Rayburn, owner of the Sunset Grill, Midtown Cafe and Cabana, said advocates pushing the law falsely claimed that nearly 40 other states had similar laws. He said the law creates increased liability for him and other owners and is a matter of public safety.
“They’ve told more fairy tales than the Brothers Grimm,” Rayburn said. “Tennessee is the only state that has a law that specifically authorizes gun permit carriers to carry their weapons into establishments that serve 50 percent or more alcohol.”
John Harris, the executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, which pushed for the law, said those pursuing the lawsuit are misguided and are trying to derail a legislative initiative that has been contemplated and discussed for more than a decade.
Harris said the idea that the legislature was not fully informed when it enacted the law last month after years of debate “borders on insanity.” He said those pushing the suit had ample opportunity through the legislative process to make their arguments and to turn to the courts is an effort to derail the General Assembly’s action.
“The problem is they don’t get the opportunity to argue, particularly in a circumstance like this, that the legislature was somehow misled in making a policy decision,” Harris said. “If no other state had this rule, Tennessee could adopt it and be the first. … The only real remedy they have is to go back to the legislature next year and persuade them they’ve made a bad policy decision and to change it.”
New Set Of Burdens
The lawsuit, to be filed in chancery court in Davidson County, will be the latest turn in one of the most controversial pieces of legislation from the most recent session. The law allows more than 200,000 handgun carry permit owners to bring their weapons into bars and restaurants. One provision of the new law is that any patron carrying a handgun can’t consume alcohol.
Technically, in Tennessee, places that serve liquor are classified as restaurants because they also must serve food under the law. Owners of the establishments can place signs barring gun permit holders from bringing their weapons inside, but Rayburn’s attorney said the law creates a new set of burdens for owners.
His attorney, David Randolph Smith, said the lack of legal distinction in Tennessee between restaurants and bars means that it is the first state to affirmatively say it is OK to bring guns in bars.
The law is set to take effect July 14, and the suit seeks a temporary restraining order until the case can go to trial to determine the law’s constitutionality.
Smith said in this case the state would be aiding and abetting a public nuisance by allowing guns in bars.
“Courts have historically shut down bars with guns in them or where shootings occurred,” Smith said. “It’s called a nuisance bar. If a bar has shootings in it, it normally gets shut down. But in Tennessee we apparently are going to have 225,000 vigilantes shooting in bars.”
LOL (please don’t take that seriously, it’s a joke).