A furniture store in Takoma Park, Maryland that calls itself a “Weapons
Free Environment” took its policy a bit too far on Independence Day.

That’s when a loss prevention officer at IKEA approached Alan Goldberg,
who carried a visible, holstered firearm into the store, telling him he
would have to leave the premises or place the weapon in his vehicle,
according to NBC Washington.

The request caught Goldberg off guard: he is Takoma Park’s chief of
police, and he was in uniform during his visit.

Goldberg was at the IKEA — a popular furniture store founded in Sweden —
to shop with his college-bound daughter after having spent the morning
working a July Fourth parade. He was also scheduled to work a fireworks
display scheduled for later in the evening.

But none of that mattered to the store’s loss prevention officer, who
approached Goldberg to inform him of IKEA’s zero-tolerance gun policy.

“He says we have a no firearms policy, and you’re either going to have
to leave or you can lock your gun in the car,” Goldberg told NBC Washington.

The 35-year law enforcement veteran said he has never been asked to part
with his service weapon before.

“It isn’t the most prudent thing to do to walk around the store in
uniform with an empty holster,” Goldberg told the station. “And I am not
going to lock my gun in a commercial parking lot, with people watching
me put it in there. That’s just ludicrous.”

Goldberg parked his shopping cart and left the store, but not before
asking to view IKEA’s written policy. Management did not provide it at
the time but released a statement to NBC Washington on Monday.

“We regret that there was a misunderstanding of our weapon policy in our
College Park Store,” IKEA said in a statement. “Our weapon policy does
not apply to law enforcement officers. We are taking steps to ensure
that this is clear for all our co-workers.”

While Goldberg was angry enough over IKEA’s request on Friday to post
about it on Facebook, he said he was satisfied by the store’s response
on Monday.

On 7/9/14, 8:46 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
A furniture store in Takoma Park, Maryland that calls itself a “Weapons
Free Environment” took its policy a bit too far on Independence Day.

That’s when a loss prevention officer at IKEA approached Alan Goldberg,
who carried a visible, holstered firearm into the store, telling him he
would have to leave the premises or place the weapon in his vehicle,
according to NBC Washington.

The request caught Goldberg off guard: he is Takoma Park’s chief of
police, and he was in uniform during his visit.


The best thing I can say about Ikea is that its cafeteria has or had
interesting items for a light lunch.

One of our local private grocery stores that caters to the wealthier
crowd and is also a full-line hard liquor, beer and wine store (a rare
combo in Maryland) hires an off-duty county cop to stand in uniform
inside the front of store on Saturdays with his firearm. He parks his
"prowler" right outside the front door entrance. I asked the manager
once what that was all about, and he said, "Good PR," since the store
has never been the site of a robbery. Well, I'm glad the local deputies
can earn a bit of easy money on their days off. One of the deputies told
me that the aromas of some of the really tasty foods the store prepares
for sale "drive him crazy" on their way out the door.

I buy chicken for grilling there. The store has "plumper" chickens than
the big grocery chains and usually has very nice fresh salmon, too, in
its seafood case.


--
Republicans . . . the anti-immigrant, anti-contraception, anti-student,
anti-middle class, pro-impeachment party that shut down the government
last year for no reason.

On 7/9/14, 11:20 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jul 2014 08:46:51 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

The request caught Goldberg off guard: he is Takoma Park’s chief of
police, and he was in uniform during his visit.

Perhaps he should have just told them "fine, we will stop responding
to calls from IKEA since all of our officers are armed".



Good idea, but the IKEA store is in College Park, a few miles west of
Takoma Park. My guess is it is a different police force.

We don't have separate township/county police here in our booming
county. All the police work is handled by the County Mounties or the
Staties. Wait, I'm not sure about Chesapeake Beach.

--
Republicans . . . the anti-immigrant, anti-contraception, anti-student,
anti-middle class, pro-impeachment party that shut down the government
last year for no reason.