King Soopers And City Market Ask Customers Not To Openly Carry Guns In Stores
DENVER (CBS4/CNN) -- Kroger is requesting customers no longer openly carry firearms into its stores, even in states where open carry is legal, the company announced Tuesday evening. Kroger operates more than 20 King Soopers stores in the Denver metro area and more than a dozen City Market stores in Colorado's mountain towns and on the Western Slope.
Kroger's announcement comes just hours after Walmart made a similar announcement. Walmart also said it would end the sales of some firearms and ammunition. Kroger stopped selling guns last year.
Kroger, like Walmart, also said it would add its voice to the growing number of corporations calling on elected officials to pass gun reform laws, such as requiring stronger background checks.
"Kroger has demonstrated with our actions that we recognize the growing chorus of Americans who are no longer comfortable with the status quo and who are advocating for concrete and common sense gun reforms," the company said in a statement.
Just last week, U.S. Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) held a news conference demanding the U.S. Senate pass new laws requiring background checks for all gun sales and a federal Red Flag bill.
RELATED: Congressman Jason Crow And Gun Safety Advocates Demand New Federal Laws
"We can solve this issue and we have an obligation to do it," Crow stated.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a Red Flag law, or Extreme Risk Protective Order, earlier this year. The law would take guns away from someone who is a threat to themselves or others. It is set to go into effect in Colorado next year.
RELATED: Colorado's Red Flag Law Could Become National Model After Trump Calls For Similar Action
As mass shootings have grown in frequency, death toll and prominence in recent years, many big companies have faced pressure to address their role in the crisis.
After a shooter in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 people last year, Dick's Sporting Goods announced it would stop selling assault-style rifles. At the same time, Walmart raised the age for gun purchases from 18 to 21. Kroger followed suit, ending all sales of guns and ammunition in its 45 Fred Meyer stores in the Pacific Northwest last March, citing declining consumer demand for firearms. The grocer had earlier stopped selling guns to people under 21 and pulled sales of magazines featuring "assault rifles."
Over the last month, Walmart in particular has faced pressure to stop selling guns after 22 people were shot and killed by a white supremacist inside a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas.
In its statement, Kroger said it would be "respectfully asking" that customers no longer openly carry guns in its stores, except for authorized law enforcement officers. It is unclear whether or how the grocer plans to enforce this request.
Walmart said it will take a "non confrontational" approach to enforcing the new policy by putting up signs announcing the request outside of stores.
Ed Scruggs, president of gun safety advocacy group Texas Gun Sense, said a number of retailers in the state (where open carry is legal) request that customers not openly carry in their stores by posting large signs stating the policy in English and Spanish outside their stores. Store workers can ask customers who do not abide by the signs to return the guns to their cars or leave the store, Scruggs said.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. CNN contributed to this report.)
